Frayed Ends Of Sanity
by Mellaithwen
Summary: AU. Post Devil's Trap, picks up where the finale left off. Everything has an aftermath.
1. Chapter 1

**Frayed Ends Of Sanity**

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**By Mellaithwen**

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**Rating: T (may change to M)**

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**Genre: Action/Adventure/Angst**

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**Disclaimer: Alas no, the boys are not my own**

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**Summary: Post Devil's Trap. Everything has an aftermath. **

* * *

**Part One**

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Sound floats in and out, like the jagged frequency of a broken radio, and just like that damned radio, with its ominous ironic country music filtering back and forth between sound and wavelengths, there's static. Static in his ears, static on the radio, static in the air, because demons aren't supposed to walk among us, and their imprints leave marks, stains, wounds.

They leave static in their wake. Golden wisps of electricity that are anything but the angelic likelihood they seem to possess. Rips in the atmosphere, tears, scars, jagged knife wounds when no blade need be present. Windows that should not be opened. Windows that lead way to something else, something no man dare ever think about for fear his head might explode.

Not from the sheer magnitude of the information, and variables they are forced to take in, but rather, from fear; blood rushing to their hearts so quickly that the _thump, thump, thump_ stops altogether.

There are three _thump, thump, thumps_ in this battered metallic frame that once was a beautiful American classic. Some _thumps_ are a little slower than others, some faster, some...just there, hanging on.

The s-s-st-static rises, screeches until it deafens, and the birds can cry no longer because their insides are turned to jelly. The bugs slither backwards into the grass, sliding far, far, far away into the earth, until earth is all they know, and light is gone, gone, gone.

* * *

Demons are manipulative bastards. Most—well, I say most, I really mean, _occasional_—creatures of the not-so-conformist-life-style where flesh and bone are concerned, tend to abide by a simple rule that if they don't see you, you don't see them.

But then, comes the cocky swagger, the tilt of a gun, the expert reload, and they've noticed you. They've noticed that you've noticed them too, and as far as pleasing demons go, this isn't the way to get into their good-books. Searching for a mythical gun, that isn't so make believe after all doesn't do much either.

Sometimes they'll have their fun, kill, maim, destroy, and they'll grin in glee at the destruction caused. Then a power above, or rather, far below them, in the deepest, darkest confines of Hell itself, will knock them down. Remind them who's really in charge, and berate them for their reckless moves, because the Winchesters were never supposed to be left _hanging_ on. Collateral damage on a whole other level.

But it's not completely unfixable; the ambulance sirens can already be heard in the distance over the din of the radio, and crackling floor beneath the demon's feet. He clicks his fingers, and the demon behind the crash dissolves into nothingness, leaving him left to explain to his boss why it is the precious, younger Winchester, stupid protégé-psychic-child, currently losing a _lot_ of blood from a huge gash spanning the length of the side of his face.

He looks left, looks right, and disappears from sight.

There's a truck driver. He isn't married, but he has his girl back home, and boy, is she pretty. He'd gone nearly three years of walking into that same bar, always treating her with the respect she deserved, and keeping his comments to himself, never letting his eyes stray if ever the moment was wrong. He had no idea she appreciated that until one night she made the first move.

He doesn't have a dog; he's a trucker, so there isn't much point, and he doesn't wait for a miracle. He's pretty sure he'll return home, and his girl will have her man. But still, it's more than most guys have. Except for the ones who put rings on their girls' fingers and have settled down, bought a dog, and had some kids.

His head snaps back, and his mouth is filled with black smoke, ash, fire, and when he falls over, the first thing he sees is a tyre, burst, rubber skewed, and he swallows, looking up. He sees the black sleek body, and as he gets on his knees, he takes deep gulps of air, trying to remember what the hell happened.

But then he's running for his radio, and he's screaming down the other end, because there's so much blood in the midnight-black car, and not enough he fears, in the unconscious men lying so still in their seats.

* * *

The car is crushed, the metal bent and broken, scratched and discarded into nothingness because this, this right here, is everything: broken toys and broken dolls inside of a broken car. This is life, and according to Dean Winchester—as he wakes up with a cry of agony, sees his family, bloody, around him—life sucks.

The static still buzzes, but he keeps his eyes closed, firmly, tries not to let his breathing hitch because it's so cold, and he hurts so much. He bites his tongue to stop from screaming out his brother's name, be it for his own comforting purpose or Sam's.

Dean can't hear his brother and father. They're not fighting anymore, they're not talking, or whispering, or...anything, but the static is only now ebbing away, and he has to wait just a few more moments before he can open his eyes, that's all.

"Sir? Sir, can you hear me?"

Can he?

"...Sam," he whispers, croaks, rasps, but it isn't Dean's brother holding the side of his face, it isn't Sam's hands checking so gently, so carefully, if he's bleeding from anywhere else.

It's not his brother's fingers checking the not-so-steady thrum of his pulse, but Dean opens his eyes anyway. And the first thing he sees, eyes trained forward, is the EMT of course, and just past her reassuring smile and rounded shoulder, he sees his brother wheeled away on a stretcher.

"_Sam."_

She follows his glazed gaze, swallows, and tells him about concussion, asks about the relation, ID, but Dean doesn't answer. Just stares.

Dean opened his eyes, why can't Sam?

Then his stomach does a flip flop, and nausea creeps up his throat so quickly that he lurches, and hisses, leaving the EMT to tell him suddenly to stop it, to calm down, _you're gonna hurt yourself._

Dean can't see his father anywhere.

* * *

When he's painfully manoeuvred onto a stretcher, everything seems like a blur because all he can see is above, the sky, the ceiling, and sometimes a face, but that's all, and when they get to the hospital—stark white walls, men and women in scrubs and coats—he tilts his head to the side, and there's Sam.

Sam with his eyes closed, Sam getting taken farther and farther away. Sam and his hands so still by his sides. Sam with a puddle of blood beneath his head.

"Sammy."

He doesn't know his father's on the other side going through the same hell. He doesn't know why seeing that door close and hide his brother, makes him so worked up, or why his eyes burn, and his chest tightens, but when he looks to the ceiling, he half expects the flames.

And that's enough to make his walls crumble, and let the darkness in.

* * *

Dean's stopped breathing.

John's barely conscious, but he knows Dean's not breathing. He can see, while he's wheeled through the never ending corridors of white linoleum, and he mutters constantly, "_My sons, my boys_." But no one listens; they're too busy trying to tend to all three Winchesters, all three Smiths, one unconscious with head trauma, one conscious but unaware of his surroundings, and the other...The worst of all three, having lost too much blood and been left for too long, odds stacking against him, and now, he's not breathing.

He was awake, last of adrenaline and worry for others keeping unconsciousness at bay, but then he opens his mouth to breathe and is met with nothing. His back arches off of the gurney, but it's not enough, and he's already weak. With a clatter he falls back, head lolled, and no air refills his lungs. His body is shutting down.

John's boys are next door, nothing but a set of double doors separating them, and when the doctors weave back and forth, John hears the barking orders for an intubations kit, and his heart skips a beat.

His son isn't breathing, and he can't see Sam.

* * *

_Mr. Toms says you should do this, Mr. Toms says you should do that. That's all John's heard all morning as he gets the boys ready for school. Sam bright and bouncing at far too early an hour and Dean grumpy at his brother's happiness before eight a.m._

"_Who's Mr. Toms?" John asks, when Sam runs into the kitchen for breakfast. _

"_New guy stepping in until Sam's teacher gets back from maternity leave," Dean explains with a yawn. _

"_What's he like?" John asks, wary of new people around his boys, and Dean quirks an eyebrow._

"_Like every other teacher out there?"_

_John frowns, and Dean calls to his little brother._

"_Hey, Sammy! Tell Dad what's wrong with the Winchester bullying policy."_

"_What policy?" John asks, not fully aware there was indeed a policy _

"_If they hit you, hit back harder," Dean says, reminding his father. Sam shakes his head vigorously, long locks falling around him. _

"_Mr. Toms says that's bad and that bullies are like bees!"_

_John waits for an explanation. _

"_If you ignore them, they go away," Sam finishes with a smile, and John pretends to be moderately impressed while Dean rolls his eyes. _

"_Yeah, and sometimes they sting you for the hell of it," he mocks, as he ruffles Sam's hair and pushes him back toward the kitchen._

* * *

Head-wounds bleed heavily, and most—if not everyone—knows that, and sometimes, it can be nothing. It will look gruesome because there's glass somehow imbedded at the top of the skull, and removing it brings forth more rivulets of crimson, and all the cotton balls in the world can't stop that post-apocalyptic look of blood pouring down the face.

Losing that much blood is dangerous, very dangerous, not to mention the fact that the head holds one of the most fragile organs in the human body. Thick skull or not, that deep a gash and a possible concussion can't bode well together.

They schedule CAT-scans for the younger man, and he takes his sweet time to wake up too. The return of REM sleep was the first indication, and how cruel, the doctors thought, that his waking up after that much trauma would be the result of a nightmare.

But it beats not waking up at all.

* * *

_They're asleep when John comes, whistling._

_John Winchester does not whistle. In over twenty years, Sam has never heard his father whistle, so he shoots awake in bed in time to find himself flung against the wall, hit with something much stronger than just déjà vu. He looks over at Dean, and sees him lying in the same position on the bed, asleep. _

_The demon is back for revenge. _

_But he isn't the only one. _

"_Not this time, fucker," Dean snarls, as the demon in John stands above, ready to strike. No, not this time, Dean thinks as he grabs the dagger beneath his pillow and embeds it into his father's chest, reaching up from his sitting position, not letting go until he can feel the warm blood on his hands. _

"_No?" the demon laughs, a hollow, mirthless chuckle that gurgles horribly. _

_John's hands grab the hilt, turn, and with a sickening squelch pull it out, leaving a ghastly trail of crimson shredded flesh in its wake. He brandishes it in front of him, teasing the oldest Winchester son, still on the bed. _

"_No," Sam says from the other side of the room, freed from invisible bonds by his brother's attack on the demon. He pulls the trigger with expert precision, spreading powder across his hand. The bullet hits the demon square in the head, and he falls __forward onto Dean, with the dagger still held out in his hand. _

_The boys may have hit their target, but now, so has the demon. _

_Dean gasps as he feebly pushes his father's corpse to the floor and tries in vain to staunch the bleeding while Sam runs over. _

"_Why...?" Dean begins, but never manages to finish his sentence, and Sam cries out because he's done it again, and he's all alone._

* * *

Sam screams for the whole ten minutes before the option of calming him down through words and pleas is abandoned, and he's forced to be sedated.

He'll wake up late the next day, gladder than ever to know it wasn't real. They'll ask him if he has night-terrors regularly, and he'll feign ignorance, and after some careful cajoling it'll be written off as mild PTSD from the crash. Sam shrugs it off as if it's nothing more than a bad dream.

But he can't tell if it was a vision or not.

And that's what scares him.

* * *

When Sam sees Dean, he tells himself he's wrong. He sees the ashen pale form on the bed and panics. He's reminded of faith healers and the rain clouds of Nebraska because that's what happened the last time Sam saw his older brother look so frail. The rest of his body is hidden behind blue and white sheets. Clean and sanatised.

The first time he saw his father, John told him all about the scare. He was told about the blue lips and steady chest, no rise, no fall and he felt his heart constrict at the news before letting out a whoosh of relief when John reassures him that they brought Dean back from the brink.

_He's breathing, son, he's alive. _

Sam doesn't feel that sweet relief now though. No matter how much he tells himself that things could have been so much worse. He stands there, staring, while his ears ring until all he can hear is the demon's voice in his ear.

_He won't last the night._

* * *

John was lucky. His injuries, common of those in car-crashes (not including a certain bullet wound), were treated expertly, and he'll live to see another day. Hell, he'll only be on crutches for a few weeks. Things could have been much worse.

And if he hears it one more time he'll throttle whatever doctor, nurse or visitor tells him so.

He was already pissed at Bobby after all, so he thinks fighting with him is justified.

And when Bobby makes the slightest implication that maybe, just maybe, this could have been avoided; John throws the Bible from the bedside table at him and screams, "_Get out_!"

Bobby shakes his head, as though he knew this was going to happen, and complies with John's not-so-polite request. But then in the doorway, he pauses, turns, and knows exactly why John's in such a foul mood.

"You're going after it, aren't you?"

John says nothing and sits like a petulant child, sulking after having been found out.

"What about the boys?" Bobby asks, and John lets his hollow stare find his former ally.

"What about them?"

Bobby growls. He knows it's a façade and knows damn well John Winchester would never mean something like that, but it hangs in the air still. Cold, impersonal words and Bobby just can't help himself.

"You don't deserve their loyalty, John."

"Don't you dare—"

The sirens scream next door, and both hunters feel their stomach drop. Sam's worried calls can be heard over the din outside in the hall, and while Bobby runs to Dean's room to see what's going on, John's left trying to limp through the agony in his thigh.

**TBC**

**Please Review!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me, because if it did, Supernatural would have aired last night and not next week. **

**Forgot to mention last chapter, but thanks so much to my beta, Pixel :)**

**Part Two**

"_Dean, you got the gun? Give it to me," John asks and commands at the same time, his hand held out. Dean keeps hold of the Colt. _

"_Dad, Sam tried to shoot the demon in Salvation, and it vanished."  
_

"_This is me, I won't miss. Now the gun, hurry."_

_Something's not right, something's different. Dean never said Sam missed, Sam didn't even know if he had missed. Dad doesn't even know Sam had squeezed the trigger._

"_Son, please."_

_But everything makes sense and doesn't at the same time; his ears begin to ring. Dean wasted a bullet and left a trail of dead bodies in their wake. And yet his father had praised him, something he never did. Ever._

_Dean backs away, and he knows. He's seen._

* * *

"What the hell happened?" John barks, taking his anger out on the nurse, when really he's just pissed that he was stuck in bed for ten minutes while all of the commotion was going on in his older son's room.

While decisions were made regarding his son's welfare.

Bobby left as soon as they wheeled Dean back up to surgery, and Sam could breathe again knowing things were in motion to make his brother better.

* * *

Hours later when the nurses (and Sam) have stopped fussing, John begs to see the doctor. His voice isn't loud, he isn't shouting, he isn't screaming. He's asking, in a small voice, desperate to know about his son.

His boy.

Dr. Jesson is called in, and with a quick overlook of the case she's reminded of it, and hurries to explain.

"Your son was experiencing acute tachycardia," she tells John, gripping the chart in her hand. "It's an abnormal rapid heart rate after adrenaline is released from the sympathetic nervous system."

"Do you know what caused it?" the fearing father asks, aware of the terminology after too many visits to the hospital with their dangerous work.

"Considering the stress your son's body is in, it could be a result from his injuries or the accident itself creating emotional distress. The adrenaline's released, and the tachycardia begins."

"Fight or flight response," Sam whispers at his father's side, recalling what he already knew.

"Yes," the doctor confirms. "We were already concerned that his breathing could become a problem, and we don't want to take any more risks. He's stabilized, and the ventilator is just a precaution, there's no need to be alarmed."

"My son is hooked up to a machine, and you're telling me not to be alarmed?"

"Yes, sir. I am," she says coolly, recalling that it was indeed the father of the two boys who had suggested this _hunt in the woods_.

She remembered the story vividly simply because it was so ridiculously unlikely that it had to be true. They had been attacked, but in both testimonies neither had been able to identify said creature. In the fray, one of the boys had shot their father, and every time she met with this John Winchester, she couldn't help but think it was deserved.

The accounts were vague, and it _was_ dark, but bias got the better of her, and perhaps she had no right to judge, or maybe as the one who had taken their moaning for so long, she had earned the right to judge.

Though granted, the truck itself was just bad luck on top of that.

Something that couldn't be helped.

"How can you stand there and—"

"Sir!" she says firmly. "Your son suffered—"

_Suffered. _

_My son suffered. _

"—grievous injuries and he needs to be treated. That can't be done if you're harassing every person coming in here who's trying to help."

John's nostrils are flaring, and his jaw is set, skin rippling by the bone as he breathes deeply.

"Dad, come on, let's just check in on Dean, okay?"

* * *

"Bobby called," Sam tells his father when the conversation dulls to nothing.

John grunts, still angry with his friend.

"Bobby—"

"_Saved_ you, Dad. He helped us out."

"Your brother never should have taken you there."

Sam sees the good ol' John Winchester and puts on a mask of indifference.

"He wanted to get you back...We both did."

"And look what happened, Sam," he says, the desperation hidden beneath the pretence of irritation.

"You're the one who got possessed, Dad," Sam bites back before he can stop himself. John actually looks hurt, and Sam regrets his words immediately.

"What did he want?" John asks, changing the subject, and Sam is grateful for that much.

"Asked about you and Dean, gave me an update on the car."

"He's fixing it up?" John sounds surprised, and Sam's almost sad to hear it.

* * *

The doctors _have_ put Dean on a ventilator for _precaution_ and necessity at a stretch. An artificial set of lungs for his boy, that's how John sees it. Tubes weaving in and out and underneath the covers on the bed where Dean lay. That's what they had been reduced to: patients in a hospital, victims of a tragedy.

The most obvious tube is the one in his son's mouth, connected to the pumping machine filled with oxygen, and John hates the sound that fills his ears as the ventilator does its job. Yes, it keeps his boy alive, until he's fit enough to breathe on his own, but John can't help think that even the machine hates him. The intake of oxygen before the hiss...

_In, Out, Hiss. In, Out, Hiss._

_All, Your, Fault. All, Your, Fault._

He's sure it's likely to drive him mad, but right now it makes him face what he's done, and he needs to face it. His son, his boy, is lying in a hospital bed and has been for far too long.

Because of _him_, because no matter how many times he's drilled it into his boys that _you can't be vulnerable for demonic possession, you always have to keep your emotions under control_ he—John Winchester—still got caught.

And look where it got their family.

Left on the side of the road in a crumpled mesh of blood, steel, flesh and oil, taking a pit stop between here and revenge.

His youngest is sleeping soundly in the other chair. He lasted no more than twenty minutes of keeping vigil by Dean's side before letting exhaustion win.

The nurses come in and out but try to keep their visits to a minimum. They don't want to impose, and they know John on a first name basis after all the time he's spent making his way up to see Dean in the ICU.

And that's why he's there now. Watching, and listening as a cold metal and plastic _thing_ makes his son's chest rise and fall. A part of him thinks staying by Dean's bedside day in day out will make the hurting less when it's time to leave again.

He whispers _I'm sorry_, and _please, please wake up _but nothing happens. Nothing at all, so John's left clutching his son's hand, rubbing his thumb across Dean's knuckles again and again waiting for a response...

And getting nothing, nowhere, fast.

* * *

When Dean was thirteen he had to haul his semi-conscious father to the free clinic in Idaho, leaving a trail of blood and a shaking nine year old in their wake.

When the doctors ushered him away from his boys, John caught a glimpse of Dean in the corridor. Hand holding Sammy's fingers, posture straight and strong. Nostrils flared, and eyes hardened.

A soldier.

John never forgot that image, but passed out before he could whisper _stand down_.

Two days later when he woke up he saw his sons curled up at the bottom of his bed. Sammy was asleep in his brother's lap, exhausted, but Dean was watching every movement his father made. There were bags under his eyes, but they were keen like a hawk. Never faltering, not for a second.

"You okay?" he asked carefully, and John smiled as best he could, grasped his boy's hand, and squeezed tightly.

"Good," Dean said simply, breathing easier. "Good."

* * *

Sam shoots awake to see his father dressed, sitting in the chair next to Dean's bed. He frowns just as John does the same.

"Nightmare?" the oldest in the room whispers, and Sam swallows the bile in his throat.

"More like a memory," Sam says after yet another dream ending with giant headlights in his eyes and metal screeching in his ears. "Any change?"

John shakes his head and stares at the still form on the bed once more.

"He'll be okay, Dad," Sam comforts, "he always is."

But the tense silence continues, and Sam lets his father speak when at last his lips part.

"I don't even know him," he says sadly, and Sam cocks his head to the side in confusion.

"What are you talking about?"

"For four years I could tell you everything. He used to change his mind all the time, but I always knew the basics. The windows had to be shut in the night, but the door kept open so he could see us in the morning. So he could get to us easier. Never wanted a bedtime story on a Friday because it was the weekend, and he always stayed up a half hour later. You had to put the banana slices on his breakfast quickly, before the milk made the cereal soggy."

"Dad?"

"He used to like planes. He had two model planes hanging from his ceiling. He liked cars, still does I'm guessing and he loved the swings in the park down the road. Always wanted to climb the tree in our front garden. Always asking, 'Where's the baby, Daddy? Where's Sammy?_'_ Wanting to hold you."

"Sounds to me like you know plenty," Sam says with a smile.

"Four year old Dean was an open book compared to now. To what I've made him into. No feelings out in the open, no emotion, and I let him do it. Making jokes and I let him do it because it was so much easier to not deal with it."

"He would have done it anyway," Sam supplies, knowing his brother well.

"Maybe," John whispers, staring back at his boy—so damn still—on the bed.

"He's afraid of flying," Sam says suddenly, surprising himself, and John.

"What?"

"There was a demon bringing down planes, so—we got on."

"You got on a plane, knowing it might crash?" John asks incredulously.

"We had to, there was no other option. We got on the plane, and I actually had to tell Dean to calm down."

"He used to go on for hours about wanting to go on one, wanting to fly one..." John says, trailing off towards the end.

"Things change," Sam tells his father solemnly. And he's right. Too damn right.

There's a silence that follows, that isn't strictly comfortable or bearable, but Sam hates the words that break it and longs for the tension if it would stall the inevitable.

"I have to go, Sammy."

John's voice sounds strange to Sam. It's not an order, it's not a request; it's just fact. Neutral in stance. It's there, and there's no reply to be given.

"The hunt isn't over, I have to find it. Kill it."

John's hands are grasping the sheets covering Dean as though they themselves are a lifeline his son needs held onto.

"I know it's out there, we can't afford to—"

"Afford to what? Be there for Dean?" Sam asks suddenly, voice rising. "Did you see his face, when you—when the demon told him how proud he was? Did you see his face, Dad?"

John looks down.

"You can't just go. What am I supposed to tell him when he wakes up?"

Sam doesn't dare say _if he wakes up,_ and both he and John are thankful for it.

"Sammy, this demon killed your mother, it killed Jessica..."

"And I won't let it kill Dean too, because if we leave, that's what'll happen." Off John's look he continues. "Yes, Dad, _we_ because you can't do this alone, and you have to stop thinking you can."

"Sam—"

"Dad, we need you to stay, please. Just stay for a little longer, just until he wakes up."

But John's on his feet now, reaching for his jacket, limping as he does so. Sam wonders if he's even bothered to fill out the AMA forms, but pushes it to the back of his mind as he jumps forward.

"Dad, _please_."

"Stay safe. I'll keep in touch."

Sam can only watch as his father makes another exit and hope that the last words his father speaks aren't lies.

* * *

"_Give me the gun. What are you doing, Dean?"_

"_He'd be furious."_

_And now that John gets a passenger side view, he feels the pride that his son's noticed at least._

"_What?"_

_Dead meat._

"_That I wasted a bullet, he wouldn't be proud of me. He'd tear me a new one."_

_Cocked and ready, the gun is aimed. _

"_You're not my dad."_

_John cringes, and the demon fakes surprise, and they all know it's just another rouse._

_The whistling begins, as the image fades, snarling, hissing, screaming so loud..._

* * *

When Sam wakes up, he's more than confused. He's certain his eyes were closed only for a second, and there's bustling around him. Feet...

He's on the ground, and he's slowly being lifted into a chair, a pen light shining in his eyes reminiscent of the one he woke up to some time ago. It's the third time the visions have done this. Taken away minutes of his life to which he has no recollection.

_Blackout. _

One minute he's standing up, or sitting down, or walking, and then suddenly he's trying his hardest to forget the images of that night but trying even harder to remember what the hell just happened.

It isn't fair that he should get images of the past and future, and none of the immediate present.

Hasn't he seen enough?

His episodes haven't gone unnoticed by the staff either. He has an MRI scheduled for the morning. He's told them more than four times _no_, and as they continue to press, Sam's decided he won't turn up instead. They can't force him; he's not a patient anymore.

He says that now, but tomorrow he'll go to their appointment after realizing that maybe something _is_ wrong.

He spends all afternoon by his brother's side. He watches the tubes with gross fascination, looking at anything but his brother, because as soon as he catches a glance of Dean, he ends up staring.

Pale lips—barely pink, cracked and dry while the almost yellow skin looks pinched and is wet from a new sheen of perspiration. Eyelids red, bruised, with lashes that stick out as much as the freckles on Dean's skin.

Hands still by his side, placed delicately atop the blue blanket covering the oh-so-dignifying gown beneath as far as Dean's abdomen. The machine beeps idly and Sam knows it's better than the screaming of the previous days.

All he can hear are the beeps, rhythmic, and his own breathing, erratic. And the ventilators grasping oxygen and feeding it to his brother in slow dosages.

He wants to see Dean's eyes. He wants them open and aware.

He wants to tell Dean to wake up _now, damn it_, but his brother has had enough orders to last him a lifetime, so he keeps his mouth shut, and his eyes wide open.

* * *

"Well, Mr Winchester, you'll be happy to know there's no bleeding in the brain to be worried about," Doctor Marks, Sam's doctor, tells him with a wry smile.

"But?" Sam asks, aware that there is something not being said.

"When you were brought in, your EEG showed a lot of brain activity, something uncommon with unconscious patients. It was as though you were experiencing nightmares, and then you wake up from a night-terror? I'm concerned."

"There's nothing wrong with me, you said it yourself."

"No, I said there was nothing on the MRI to indicate there was something wrong. And there isn't. Look, night-terrors don't occur during the REM period; they occur in the fourth stage of sleep. You were out for two days, and if I'm not mistaken, you know exactly what you were dreaming about, and most don't." He sighs deeply. "If you don't tell me everything, I can't treat you."

"I'm not your patient," Sam tells him, trying hard to keep an air of polite response in his voice.

"You were, and that's enough for me. Are the night-terrors constant?"

"They're night_mares_," Sam corrects.

"This is the first time you've woken up screaming for over ten minutes then? Non stop?" the doctor asks, already writing down notes in the margins of his notebook.

"Yes," Sam replies, feeling more and more agitated by each question asked.

"Sam, I'm only trying to help. We need to treat this as a sleep disorder; we need to make them stop—"

"Why? What if I don't want them to stop? What if they help?"

"Well, Sam, you have to ask yourself, if they help you that much why are you blacking out? If they're such a good thing, why are they endangering your health?"

Sam has no reply.

**TBC**

**Please Review!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Pixel beta'd this while she was ill, so the gratefullness cannot be explained to it's full (and pretty glorious) extent.**

**Part Three**

John hears hushed whispers when he leaves. Voices following him all the way to the door. He realises then that this is the first time he's dare leave.

If he wasn't under strict orders to stay in bed, he was by Dean's side or comforting Sam. The last time he remembers being outside, he had a bullet in his leg and Sam's voice in his ear.

Now he's got his pack in his hand, the salvaged weapons within, including the gun—the wonderful, magical gun that will save them. Solve their problems and stop the hurting.

_Yeah right. _

He doesn't want to leave, but he has to. It's no excuse, but it's the truth. He doesn't want Sam to deal with this alone, but Missouri won't answer her phone and John already knows that Bobby thinks he's full of shit.

He doesn't want Dean to be hurt. He doesn't want his little boy's last words to be a pleading whisper of, _"Sam, no."_

He doesn't want Dean to have last words for years and years...

He pays the last of their bills with one of the few credit cards he has with his own name. Just in case he'd thought at the time when he filled the form in for a Winchester and not a Smith, or a Jones.

Just in case.

Just in case you get possessed and shot, just in case you torture your own little boy. Just in case a truck slams into you while your youngest son is driving. Just in case you're too scared to think up an alias because Mary's boys are unconscious. Just in case.

He'd been more than worried. John Winchester had left Lawrence a long time ago, Dean Winchester was wanted for murder (though granted thought to be deceased) and Sam Winchester's friends would have no doubt declared him missing after all of this time. A road-trip was one thing...but a year?

But that's who they were.

The broken Winchesters. The fallen heroes. Waiting to get back up again.

No police officers had come their way searching for a murderer. They'd asked about the gun shot, and Sam had bullshitteded beautifully. They'd gotten a statement from the truck driver, and John almost felt sorry for him. The way things were going, he'd most likely be charged for falling asleep at the wheel.

The automatic doors swing open, and John nods at the security guard there.

He makes a note to leave an anonymous tip at the station with the implications that it wasn't really anyone's fault.

Even though he knows it won't do a hell of a lot.

* * *

Sam is alone when it begins. He's sitting as comfortable as possible in a seat that really wasn't built with comfort in mind. He's remembering the doctor's words about his own health and Dean's. He's wondering about his father and whether he's all right.

He's alone when it begins.

He's the only other person in the room when Dean's fingers twitch. It's sudden and small, but _there_. Followed quickly by another twitch, until the whole right hand jerks against the bed and the left then does the same. Sam sees Dean's eyelids moving back and forth quickly beneath closed lids. Chest rising and falling faster and faster.

Sam hits the red call button before he can think, but he's alone when it begins.

Dean's eyes open as quickly as the twitch in his hand, but there's no mistaking this. No mistaking the clouded, glazed green eyes, seemingly dull but then, too bright.

Sam's about to lean closer, when the nurses finally arrive, doctors too.

It takes less than a second for Dean to reach for the tube down his throat, movements jerky and harsh, sudden and scared, but with one mission.

When the nurses hold him down, Dean's eyes are wild and afraid. He bucks and arches his back up off of the bed; he's strong despite his surroundings and condition. He's focused only on getting the damn thing, and if he keeps on much longer, he'll stop breathing all together.

His last memories, distorted as they are, have the stench of copper woven deep. Pain laced between the intricately striped walls of feelings and emotions inside of the tapestry, inside of Dean. Random thoughts spread sporadically between the strong patchworks of _it found us, it's here,_ and _I know my dad better than anyone, and you ain't him._

He hates hospitals. He hates tubes down his goddamn throat. He hates fighting when his energy's spent, and he hates being reminded that he isn't capable.

The medical staff are shouting now and so is Sam, but they're barely heard over the whining machines as Dean's heart rate increases rapidly. They're telling him to calm down, but he can't, he can't, until...

Until Sam pushes his way back to his brother's side. He grabs Dean's forearms, holds them tight, and whispers, "Ready?"

Dean doesn't nod. Sam already knows the answer, and as the doctor catches on, he too moves forward, holds the tube steady and lets Sam manoeuvre his brother into a better position.

_One, two, exhale._

A great pull and a horrible gurgle, followed by harsh coughs that hack through Dean's chest, sear his throat even more, and lead the way to trepidation when it comes to closing his eyes.

The world seems so bright, so new, and so different, until it all comes crashing down, and Dean lets Sam hold him in his arms, because his throat is burning, aching, screaming, and he's so damn worried, so damn confused.

But Sam's there, telling him to take it slow, calm down.

Black spots dance in front of Dean's eyes as his breath hitches for less than a moment, and panic sets in for a lot longer. He takes great big gulps of air to overcompensate; the sensation makes his head swim before the black spots morph into great big blotches and there's nothing left to see but the great big black hole he's fallen into once more.

* * *

_He hears the whistling as the fire crackles in the place. Rises up and falls back down. Reds and yellows and oranges, and black ash falling like snowflakes. _

_Like black, burning, snowflakes. _

_The whistling doesn't stop. Not when he hears a slice and a scream, not when he hears the drip, drip, drip. The whistling never stops. He hears snarling, hissing, and another-another-another scream._

_He sees red all over. On the floor, on the walls, on the ceiling and the windows. The bed sheets are sodden, the clothes are too. He feels the familiarity, the cold shiver that this could have been stopped, but the scream isn't Dean's and the blood isn't either._

* * *

Sam's heart is beating hard, and he swallows the bile quickly, wiping his forehead free of the beads of sweat forming there. He looks back to his brother, still out cold, monitored carefully, and sighs. He thinks back to Doctor Marks and his words of caution, and he wonders if visions so vague are any help at all.

When he closes his eyes, he can still hear that scream, but he doesn't dare match it to a face, because he knows he's already too late.

* * *

Pre-rounds. Goddamn pre-rounds. Dean knows because in almost every hospital he's been to there are pre-rounds. In most cases—like now—the interns are kind and apologetic for waking patients up just after five.

His head aches, his chest more so, and when his eyes flutter open, everything's just a blur with splotches of light scattered between. He hears a surprised, "Sir?" and another, "Sir?" before the young woman is standing above him, pen-light dangling in front of his eyes. She's blinding him, but he does as he's supposed to, and the light goes away with a click.

"How are you feeling?" she asks, when Dean focuses on her once more, and he grunts in reply; he's surprised at the weak gurgle he hears. He swallows deeply and tries again.

"'m good." His throat burns, and his mouth tastes like cotton.

"Do you know where you are?" she asks carefully, and Dean smiles weakly.

"Heaven?"

She grins as she checks the chart with her trained eyes.

"...Dad?" he asks, his voice rasping, barely audible. She hears him and promises to check.

"The young man with you, he's in the waiting area."

And when Dean's forehead frowns, she continues.

"He refused to leave the hospital when visiting hours were over," she explains—her eyes alight with amusement.

"He's my brother," Dean explains lying back against the pillow, wondering why their father wasn't waiting _with_ Sam.

* * *

He listens vaguely at the report the intern gives, flinches at some, assuming that he should probably give some kind of reaction considering what he's hearing.

_Complications, surgery, tachycardia, transfusion, ventilator. _

He's given a smile from an attending he hasn't been introduced to, but who already knows more about Dean's insides than Dean himself.

He's left alone to his thoughts, wondering if now his nine lives are up.

* * *

Later in the morning, Sam's back.

Long after the pretty intern has presented Dean's case to the attending, just when he was wondering to himself how long he should wait before breaking out.

The doctors sigh, but understand when they see the tall, bushy haired man from yesterday striding down the hallways, and they say nothing but watch in his wake.

Dean sleeps for a little and pretends for the rest. There's something to be said about ignorance being bliss; and he takes note of the first few letters being twinned with _ignore_ keeps his eyes closed.

Sam sips on his coffee, adjusts the paper on his lap that he has no interest in.

He doesn't know what he's running on anymore, but it sure as hell isn't sleep. The pain medication was weaned off a week or so ago, and he's forgotten the feel of adrenaline.

He takes another sip, thinking how peaceful Dean is when he's asleep.

Faking it or not.

* * *

When Dean finally decides to show that yes, he is awake, and yes, he is lucid—to anyone but his doctors—he wonders if he should put Sam out of his misery when the topic turns silent, and Sam knows he has to tell.

He doesn't know that Dean's already worked it out—or thinks he has— and he doesn't think too much of the lack of questions being shot his way.

He just starts talking and can't stop. Refuses to stop and Dean would never dare cut across him. Sam's been waiting for this, for too long, and he needs it, Dean knows that. And he listens, and he doesn't look away, he doesn't pretend he's not listening, or makes a crude joke at the end.

He listens, and he hurts, and he grieves, and Sam talks, just talks, more so than he's done in a long time; it helps him, and Dean knows that, but he's waited and now he needs to hear the words he's waiting for.

"Dad?"

The question catches Sam off guard, and he looks down, and for a moment, Dean fears the worst.

"He booked." And at Dean's expression, Sam hastily continues, "Dean, you were out for a while, man, and he was here every day since he woke up, but the demon's still out there..."

Dean nods, smiles, and keeps pretending.

* * *

_Mary had a little lamb. That's what he's whistling when he breaks into their room after stealing their father's body. He stops, faces Sam, and stares until the Winchester can hear the changed lyrics in his head._

"_Her parents tried to shut me out, shut me out, shut me out, her parents tried to shut me out, but still I lingered near and waited patiently about, patiently about, patiently about, and waited patiently about till Mary did appear."_

_He sneers. _

"_Then up in smoke, momma goes, Sammy."_

* * *

Sam walks down the corridors of the hospital with a mask upon his face. He's haunted by the goddamn nursery rhyme. Once it gets in, it doesn't get out, and he wouldn't be surprised if he started whistling the thing himself. He's heading for Dean's room as always. Fear propelling his stride with the images of last night's massacre replaying in his mind to the surprising melodic singing of his father's voice.

The demon's twisted song.

Sam walks in, he doesn't need to knock, he never has before, and the door is already open. The new male intern assigned to Dean's case left it that way. He's still standing next to Dean, who sits on the edge of the bed, a look of fury hidden behind a tight smile—visible only to Sam—on his face.

"Sir, I strongly suggest you reconsider." Sam hears an unfamiliar voice speak.

"Thanks, but no." Dean replies curtly.

"Sir." More frank, more annoyed, more official…

"Look, I'm good, and I'm taking up bed-space, so if you don't mind." And he gestures to the door, seeing Sam for the first time and letting his hand fall, and his eyes find the floor. The intern sighs once more, another patient to add to a long list of grievances, and leaves, giving Sam a look he has yet to decipher as he does so.

Dean's hands shake when he reaches for his socks, and Sam hadn't even noticed that Dean was dressed.

"Where do you think you're going?" he asks, seeing Dean in his shirt. It's loose, baggy as hell, and Sam wonders how much weight his brother's lost after being fed through tubes for so long and having no appetite upon awakening.

But the shirt's old, tatty, and it's likely it always looked like that, and that it's only being worn now to help with the bandages still wrapping his torso. There hasn't been a spot of red there for weeks, but it's precaution until the wounds are fully healed. He also knows the bandages will be torn away as soon as they reach the motel. With Dean spending over and hour or so in the bathroom arranging his prescription drugs and pretending he isn't broken inside and out.

Sam's palms are sweaty, and he's at a loss of what to do. Dean wants to leave, and Sam can't say he honestly wants to stay, but his vision wasn't a hospital room. He didn't hear the whistling in a cold white corridor. He heard it outside of a motel room door. He wasn't flung against a blue wall. If they left now, are they safer or in more danger?

What if the Demon attacks tonight? What if this is the day everything stops?

What if it isn't?

What if the Demon comes tomorrow or another day? What if Sam spends his entire life looking over his shoulder?

"Back on the road?" he asks casually, and Dean nods. They have to leave. They never stay in one place for this long...

When the doctor comes back, he has papers for Dean to sign, which he does in record time, in a hurry for a reason Sam doesn't know.

He isn't told until the doctor's gone again, and Dean says so quietly and stern, "We have to find him."

_Ah. _

Sam catches a glance at the window, sees the thundering black clouds, so close to letting rain fall, and knows it's not the best time to have his brother leave. But Dean's adamant, and he's angry about so many things. The only thing Sam will push him about is who gets to drive the rental, but Dean never even suggests otherwise as he realises that this is their car for now.

That this too-clean, too-new, too-young... This thing, with no history, no ties, just...a car, was what he and Sam will be stuck in from now on?

Sam sees the look, starts promises that they can go get a car as soon as Dean wants. Another rental of course and that he doesn't mind if it's a Chevy, or if it's even the exact same model, because it's Dean's choice more than his.

Dean only nods. He never smiles. It's not the same, and Sam just doesn't understand.

But Sam is keeping his cards held close to his chest, knowing it'll be worth it when Dean sees the gleaming Impala once again restored to its former glory. He knows that every jibe the rental will have thrown its way will be just as soon as they drive up to Bobby's place and drive back behind the wheel of the Impala.

They just have to wait, that's all.

When the doctor returns, he stops in the doorway. His shoulders are squared, but he's no taller than Dean and certainly not Sam. His face is calm, but he's ready to verbally assault Dean back into bed by listing the damn near misses one after the other, should his patient disagree.

"One check up," he says in a no-nonsense tone that isn't fooling anyone.

Dean starts to groan, but the doctor continues, "One check up, and you leave here a free man."

"Come on, Dean, just let him do the check up, then we can go," Sam pleads.

There's a moment then. It isn't ground breaking, it isn't new, but it's there. Sam's asking Dean, and Dean will comply because he always does. Sam is watching him carefully, hoping desperately to see the lull in the shoulders that means he's won.

And there it is.

The shrug and grunt that tell him Dean has agreed.

Sam feels no relief. No happiness. Just guilt for knowing his brother so well when Dean tries so hard to be unreadable. Guilt for having perfected the tone in which he asks for things so much so that Dean has forgotten how to disagree.

Guilt, because all Dean's wanted to do since he woke up, is leave, and now Sam is stalling out of fear. He knows that if he told Dean about his dream, his brother would tell him, "What are we waiting for? Let's get the hell out of Dodge."

So Sam doesn't say a word. He feels a chill run down his spine when a nurse walks past, humming a certain nursery rhyme, and his heart constricts at the black, endless pit-like eyes that stare at him then.

But then they're gone, and Sam wonders, hopes, dares to tell himself that it was just a trick of the light.

**TBC**

**Please Review! I need to know what you guys think or there's no point!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I keep forgetting to do these. Well, no, they're not mine. Beta'd by the awesome Pixel, inspired by the meany called Kripke :)**

**Note**** on spoilers: I'm as up to date as the US, but that doesn't mean I want to see any spoilers further than that. Thanks. **

**Also, this was written pre-In My Time of Dying, it is now officially an AU. **

****

**Part Four. **

The drive is worse than it should be. The music is low and neither complains, whereas before, Dean might have turned up the volume, cranking it up and letting it fill the Impala. But there is no Impala, and Dean's penchant for loud music to fill the silence went away as soon as his thoughts became loud enough. His regrets and doubts pound away louder than any Metallica track ever could.

They pass so many signs, so many roads, some travelled in the past, some not. Some leading to the unknown, while others, like the one they're on, taking them to somewhere they'd rather not be.

The last sign they see dwindles by, and Sam shifts in his seat, amazed at how uncomfortable having a proper seatbelt can be when you're used to the strange, yet satisfying, comfort of the Impala's interior. He glances up at the reminder that they're on the right road, if not the right track:

_Lawrence, 3_

* * *

When they reach her house, the _For Sale_ sign is glaring, and when they step in, a real estate agent shoos them out none-too-gently. He won't tell them anything, and they can't help but notice how quiet the house seems. How dead it is now, how lonely.

The sign is still there. _Missouri Mosely_.

But Missouri's long gone.

They went to her house and found out the truth.

They stray to their old home, belonging to the Winchesters no longer, and they knock the door and get a surprisingly happy reception from Seri. Even now—well over a year later—she still hasn't forgotten. Jenny rushes to the door, reprimanding her daughter for answering it alone. But then she sees her guests, gushes, and invites them in with much less suspicion than the last time they were here.

They're given good coffee, allowed to eat biscuits, store bought, from the tin, and they humour Seri with her new found hobby of reading ghost-stories. Sam feels guilty, but it seems like so long since he really saw Dean smile, and he lets himself forget.

They don't tell her any of their own—they know better—but they still smile, before Jenny asks her daughter to clean her room, and she complies in a huff. Jenny turns back to the boys, looks down, and tells them where Missouri is. She tells them about the fire, the flames that reached so high up, and the arrival of many visitors, afterwards, some even coming to her door and asking for John Winchester. But she turned them away, unable to pass on more information.

Sam and Dean take deep breaths and know they have to leave. Another casualty has just been added to the list, and soon, there'll be no one left to turn to.

A part of them knows there's no way in Hell their father hasn't heard about this, and they wonder to themselves if this—yet another death in Lawrence—will spark the revenge streak in John once more.

Dean doesn't realise that what the demon did to him would be enough reason for John any day.

Sam does, but he knows better than to say it out loud.

They drive past the cemetery, both saying their own prayers underneath their breaths. Forgiveness, maybe, who knows? And they start the long drive away from--or at least, the place that most resembled—their hometown.

Dean tells himself over and over and over, his father is fine, his father is fine, his father didn't try to kill him, and he does love him, he does need him and the demon was full of lies. He thinks the more he says it, the more likely he is to believe. It'll just take some time. That's all. Issues are familiar to him, and burying them? He's become somewhat of an expert.

Why should the aftermath be any different?

* * *

Sam frowns like a disapproving parent when the only thing Dean gets is a pack of peanut M&M's and he knows it's his brother's meagre attempt to save cash, even though the latest scam is going smoothly as usual. He says nothing, but doesn't hide the glance, and orders his own lunch while his brother finds them a booth at the back, out of the way, like always.

Dean finishes the pack quickly, hungrier than he realised, and his stomach rumbles when he looks over at Sam and his BLT. He wishes he'd grabbed something with more substance, but Sam knows he'll never finish it alone and says nothing when his brother reaches over and grabs almost half of the sandwich.

Dean speaks with his mouth full when he points out the article, gives the quick summary of what's inside, and talks of a child's injuries after a night spent in the local haunted house. Sam shakes his head.

"We're not ready, Dean."

"When will we be, Sam?"

And he knows his brother is right.

* * *

It's nothing more than an old man, an old _dead_ man, but an old man all the same, still trying to keep his crumbling house safe from vandals. Protecting items that are no longer there and yelling at children to stay off the grass that, once green and lush, is now overgrown with weeds, untended, and forgotten.

Much like the old man, they muse, as they pour salt over the body, set it alight, and put the spirit to rest.

It's a simple torching that an amateur ghost hunter could have done, if they existed, and it's a nice slow paced job to get them back into the feel of things. Sam never brings up his want for a normal life as he stays with Dean, having to hunt once more, though secretly he's glad.

Normal's over-rated anyway.

* * *

Dean hears shuffling in the room when he wakes, and he clutches the knife tighter. It's only Sam, but he doesn't let go...it used to have a sheath, he remembers, he'd feel a tug at his lips whenever he brought it out, and he would hear the metal scraping before bringing it out to do some serious damage on the monster of the week.

It's nothing new that he sleeps with it under his pillow; he's done so for a while. Precaution, he told Sam once, precaution. But not being able to sleep without grasping it tightly? Now that is a new one. He can't not hold on to it, keeping his eyes closed as he hears the flush, a yawn and the ruffling of bed sheets. He holds onto it still, ready to kill the next thing that thinks it's okay to mess with the Winchesters.

He can't sleep without it, and he can't tell if that's a good thing or not. He's waiting for the next attack, the next fight.

It shouldn't be long now, he knows.

He can hear their whispers when the clock strikes three, and he's still awake, still alert, still on edge. He hears them whether they say it or not. He hears them always.

_Soon. _

A promise of the coming storm, and Dean's own words come back to him in retort, _I will march into hell myself and slaughter each and every one of you evil sons o' bitches so help me God_. And Dean Winchester has never been one for idle threats, after all.

* * *

There are seventeen articles on the Internet about grave robbing in Connecticut. There are forty articles on the Internet about sightings of the undead, but only nine of them are remotely believable.

Friends, family members, people of the community, all dead, and all walking around without a spring in their step.

Because zombies just don't dance. Their movements are slow, and they wade around like they're stuck in waist deep mud, and groan from here to nowhere.

* * *

They're rounding the dark alleyway when she appears. She's strong, and when she jumps—or rather, falls from a great height—she lands on them both. Dean veers to the left but a leg still catches him straight in the chest, while Sam gets the brunt of the force and finds himself pinned by the reanimated corpse.

Her eyes are dead but searching. Her rotting fingers are tracing the faint scars and grooves on Sam's face. Her straggly hair, like dry seaweed, falls forward, covers half of her face and Sam's, and he's struggling against her leering mouth and the rancid breath.

He's gagging and trying to push her up, while Dean is still on the floor feeling the agony of the harsh kick to his tender skin. It feels like the girl has pressed the demon in further, as though the wounds were open again and bleeding. There are spots in front of his eyes, dancing out of reach, and his teeth are clenched so tightly his jaw hurts.

"Dean!" He hears from afar, a whisper—that is actually more of a desperate shout.

The older Winchester takes as many deep breaths as he can before getting up. Forcing his joints to obey him, to do as he says, and help Sam. To get the dumpster and scramble for a weapon he's sure he saw.

He finds the cracked, but usable, baseball bat in the dumpster, grabs it and runs forward. He's brandishing it when he stops.

And fights the urge to laugh.

Because as much as Sam is struggling and fighting, the woman—undead—is just staring at him and stroking his cheek. There's nothing violent about it—other than Sam's urge to puke—and Dean's surprised.

"Dean!" Sam cries once more, and Dean shakes his head, and walks slowly over to his brother.

He swings it back, tilts it to the side, and hits the girl square at the base of her skull.

The rotting skin, bones and muscle—complete with the sheer force of the blow, leave the head rolling far away from the body. For a moment of morbid fascination, both Winchesters find themselves staring at the headless body twitching, arms flailing, before lying still.

"You okay?" Dean asks, as he holds his hand out to his brother and hoists him up with a hiss disguised as a cough.

"Yeah," Sam assures as he brushes down his clothes. He looks back at his older brother, concern clear. "What about you? She must have kicked pretty hard."

"I'm fine, Sam. Just took me by surprise."

_Nothing takes Dean Winchester by surprise, _says the child in Sam that still idolizes his brother and looks up to him. Can't very well do that when you're taller than your hero, now can you?

"So, is there a reason you waited?" Sam asks, irritated.

Dean smiles.

"She liked you," he says with a sly grin, and Sam remembers the signs for a teasing from his childhood.

"What? Dean—"

"The undead zombie chick, really, really _liked_ you."

"Feel free to stop at any time."

And he does, until they get to the car. Sam slides in behind the wheel, and Dean looks at his brother. He pauses dramatically, so much so that Sam looks concerned.

"She _wanted_ you."

Sam's face falls, and he growls.

"Damn it, Dean!"

* * *

Sam's always prided himself on a strong stomach. Ever since he'd seen his first dead body and seen how well his older brother had reacted, how calm he seemed at the lack of air in the man's lungs, Sam had fought to do the same. The stench of a particularly old carcass would still churn his stomach, and he had a sneaking suspicion it always would, and he knew the sigh of the blood from those he knew, his brother, Jessica...his father, would always haunt him that much more, make him feel sick, bring him close to tears.

But in the long run, he was pretty damn good at keeping his stomach content where it should be. In his stomach, until his body naturally decided otherwise.

But then Dean starts talking about the cattle mutilations down in West Texas, and not just an off-hand comment about them existing, or about a recent case, oh no, he starts by reading select emotive language from the newspaper article that goes into great detail; he then goes on to recall a time when he himself had investigated such a phenomenon, describing everything.

"Must you?" Sam growls, pushing his lunch across the diner table.

Dean grins. "Yes." And he steals the burger from Sam's plate.

The entire drive consists of the odd bitching against the lack of performance of the car (the rental car that should have been returned over a month ago), and Sam smiling out of his brother's eye line.

They get to their destination, they investigate, and they fight the urge to bring up their dinner when the unfazed and somewhat grumpy farmer shows them the great mess that was once a cow. Sam finally gives in and excuses himself, able to hear Dean's laughing over his own retching behind a pile of hay.

* * *

"Mothman?" Sam wonders aloud when they're back in their motel room, and Dean has finally stopped teasing his younger brother.

"Nah, isolated incident, why?"

"Animal carcasses drained of blood..." Sam says, as though it's obvious. Dean nods, but sticks to his original statement, muttering, "Next."

"Satanists?"

"Area around them was too clean."

"How can you be sure?"

"'Cause I'm older."

"Try again."

"'Cause as stupid as the cops can be, I think forensics might have come up with something by now. It's a small town, freaky shit kinda takes priority."

"So we're in agreement that it's a creature of some kind."

"Yup."

"Chupacabra?"

"Cows, not goats."

"Some accounts say they attack livestock in _general_."

"Bite marks don't match up," Dean says, his tone bored, as he holds back the urge to yawn.

"Are we going to do this all night?"

"Do what?"

"I suggest things, and you sit there discarding them all."

"Come up with better suggestions, and I won't have to."

* * *

"I said it was Satanists." And it's as good as _I told you so_.

"What do you want Sam? A freakin' medal? You want me to scream that I was wrong? Huh, Sam?"

"What's with you?"

"What's with me? Sam, you've been bugging me for over an hour about this!"

"…Are you pissed there wasn't anything to kill?"

Dean's retort is drowned out on purpose by the riffs of a guitar on an ageing tape in the player, driving until they need to stop again, driving until the end of the road, or—depending on how long it takes for Dean to start to nod off—the next motel sign.

* * *

Sam's watching a film when Dean gets back from the quick shop. At first glance, the older brother makes a joke about preferring it when Monroe is standing over a windy grate in that nice white dress of hers, rather than sitting in a car, talking about god knows what. He hasn't been watching, he's been out, walking, like he does so often nowadays, trying to find his thoughts jumbled by a confusion that he can't get rid of.

But Sam's been watching. He's been watching for nearly two hours, and he can't believe his luck, or lack of, when Dean returns in time to ruin the ending as he does with most films.

"_Which way is home?"_ Marilyn's character, Roslyn, asks Clark Gable sitting by her side.

"_God bless you girl,"_ his character, Gay, replies. And Roslyn takes pause for a silent second before asking, her voice somewhat crisp, or maybe it's just the quality of the old television set, Sam isn't sure.

"_How do you find your way back in the dark?"_

And Sam can't tell why, but the room seems tenser. Quieter, and he dares glimpse over to his brother to see him standing there, like a statue. Staring at the screen, his eyes lighter, waiting for the answer as though it would help him in some way. He's waiting and waiting, and Sam is watching his brother's hands shake, wondering how long he's felt the dark closing in.

"_Just head for that big star straight on,"_ Gay says, pointing ahead. _"The highway's under it."_ Dean's eyebrows are knitting together, hearing the driving reference and attributing it to his own life. _"It'll take us right home."_

They don't have a home, maybe this is a hint that they should get one, find one, or look for the one they lost so long ago. What was it Sam had heard Gable say earlier in the film? _Honey, nothing can live unless something dies._

Which one of them was supposed to live? If not both, whose choice would that be? Three's an easier number, Sam thinks. Because now, if Dean dies, and Sam's left to bury him, then what? Who buries Sam? And if Sam dies first, and Dean's left to fulfil his own promise of being the only one left in their broken family who hasn't died for this goddamn demon, then who will bury Dean? Who will take care of him and make sure he doesn't kill himself by thrusting himself into the hunt much like now?

Dad's after the demon. Dad never called when Dean was dying, and he still hasn't called now, too busy on the trail that nearly got them all killed. Sam doesn't want to hate him, but he finds it so much easier to see them as a family of two now, rather than three. To hell with easier numbers.

The credits have already started to roll, the music filtering in and out as the signal worsens. Dean snaps out of his reverie, continuing with his work of unpacking the few groceries he grabbed at the 7-11. He doesn't look up at Sam, and he spends over an hour in the bathroom once the bags are empty and there's nothing left to say or do.

**TBC**

**Cannot stress enough that without the reviews (thanks guys!) I wouldn't be writing this...**


	5. Chapter 5

**Part Five**

They're staying in San Bernardino for the night when Dean's cell phone rings suddenly.

They're exhausted and trying their best to get some god-damn shut eye when the chiming tone is loud in their ears, and Dean doesn't think twice before flipping it open just to shut it up.

"Hello?" he answers, stifling a yawn and running his free hand over his tired eyes.

"_Dean." _The voice sounds relieved, gruff and familiar...

When Dean drops his cell and rushes out the door without a single word spoken into the phone, Sam picks it up and knows just how to greet the caller.

"Dad."

John's worried, understandably, and he asks about his sons. Their wellbeing.

And Sam tells him the truth. "We're okay."

Because they really are, considering, though Dean running off is the only time he's ever shown a lack of control in regards to that night so many months ago. John starts apologising to Sam, knowing he isn't the one who needs to hear it.

John already knows about Missouri, got the call, and he thinks it's more of vindication than targeting. Sam thinks the same.

John asks about his oldest, and Sam isn't sure how to reply.

"He's just...he hasn't heard your voice since...you know."

John's silent, and he doesn't dare bring up all of the times he spoke to his son in his comatose state because he knows it doesn't count. He doesn't even think Dean would believe him if he told his son about the many days and nights John kept a steady vigil by his son's side.

"_Tell him—"_ he begins, but Sam cuts him off.

"I'll get him to call, okay, Dad? Just...just answer your phone, okay?" he says, not unkindly, and John whispers, _All right,_ _okay_.

And they both hope it's enough.

* * *

"Do you wanna talk about it?" Sam asks carefully, as he joins his brother in the parking lot outside of their room. Dean glares quickly, and Sam backs off.

For a second.

"He's trying, Dean."

The fear from Dean's eyes is gone, but it's been replaced with something Sam hasn't seen for a long time and doesn't care to see much longer.

_Betrayal._

"Since when do you take Dad's side?" Dean asks with a mirthless snort.

"Since you started flinching every time he's mentioned," Sam replies sadly, but Dean is looking away.

"You don't understand," Dean says finally, so quietly that Sam nearly doesn't catch the words spoken in the cold night air.

"What?" Sam isn't sure how he's supposed to react to what his brother's saying. How could he not understand? He was there!

"You don't—" Dean begins, but never gets the chance to finish.

"No, Dean, I don't! I don't _get_ why you're acting like this because you won't _tell_ me!"

"Why do you think that is, Sam?" Dean asks, his tone quietened drastically.

"I haven't got a damn clue."

"That's because you don't _know_, Sam!"

"I don't know? Dean, I was there, I had to watch, I had to listen too, you think I liked hearing him talk about mom and Jess and you? You think it was just a walk in the park for any of us? You can't blame him!"

"Do you think I want to blame him? It's _Dad_, Sam." Dean stops, takes a deep breath, and Sam recognizes the signs as Dean tries to shut his emotions away from the world.

Sure enough, when Dean looks up again, Sam sees his eyes as cold and indifferent.

"I can't change what happened, and I can't—it's Dad's voice in my head, Sam. It's him telling me I'm not good enough, and it's him looking at me. I can't see the demon anymore."

Sam feels a gnawing in his stomach and knows it's a result of his brother's emotions. Sam's unprepared and uncomfortable to have Dean bare his soul.

"I just see Dad." And once again, Dean's looking away, avoiding his brother's concerned gaze.

"Dean, just_ call_ him."

Sam knows by the hunched shoulders that Dean's silently agreed.

* * *

Sam doesn't listen in, he's almost afraid to do so, but he's waiting outside of the door. Dean thinks he's in the car, it doesn't matter, all Sam hears are muffled responses and even then it's only one side of a very long and overdue conversation. There was hesitance to begin with he knows, and it was only after ten minutes of getting used to his father's voice, void of malice that Dean could shoo Sam out of the room.

When the door opens, Dean's face cannot be read, but the bags under his eyes seem somewhat lighter, and he's carrying himself differently.

"What did he say?" Sam asks, and Dean shrugs.

"Got a job for us."

And both of them know that wasn't what Sam meant.

* * *

The job is simple. More of an investigation than a job. They don't have a target. Yet.

Five deaths in and around the area. Five brutal deaths—all described as vicious attacks but not once has an animal been found.

The bodies—nearly impossible to identify—were too destroyed to be left over from a domestic animal attack.

Whatever it was wasn't to be messed with, and all seemed to originate from the only abandoned house on the block.

The Adams' Residence.

* * *

Sam's on stakeout duty.

Normally, Dean and he would do it together, but with the lack of leads, information, and theories to go on, the older Winchester was far too immersed in research.

Sam had scanned every page of their father's journal, while Dean promptly ignored it.

That much, confused Sam.

The fact that he was researching that is, not Dean's discarding of the book; he knew exactly why his brother was doing _that_.

He was the one Dean called the geek, and yet, Dean is the one in their motel room reading one police report after the other of disturbances in the area, momentarily borrowed from the station, thanks to a certain homeland security alias.

"_You go,"_ Dean had said simply, not even looking up.

"_What?"_

Dean looked up then, adopted a stern face and began the list.

"_Check the place out. Don't go in, don't touch anything, don't draw attention to yourself, and don't piss off any spirits or demons, or old ladies on the neighbourhood watch, okay?"_

And then his eyes were back on the reports without missing a beat.

It wasn't that Sam hadn't listened. He had heard the undertone of Dean's that said going in meant a pissed off older brother, but...

His first thought is that it's his instinct. A sixth sense that isn't really there, brought on by general foreboding and events calculated previously—leading to the conclusion that something is wrong. Something is off.

His second thought, the least rational but most logical—is to blame his ability. Psychic alarm bells ringing in his head as he stares up at the house, delete comma that seems to leer above, windows like eyes glaring.

And that's when he sees it hanging on the porch door and forgets all of Dean's warnings.

The amulet seems to shine when his finger touches the intricate detail in the centre, but the sun is out, and the glint was no doubt from there. He pays it no heed, and as he's walking down the steps of the house, he hears a snarl, a low, menacing growl, and feels his stomach drop before he starts running full pelt to the motel room.

* * *

"H-hellhounds!" Sam cries, his breath heaving as he throws himself against the door as though to stop something from coming in.

Dean's eyebrows are raised.

"What?"

"Did you not just hear me!" Sam shouts. "Hellhounds! Here, now!"

"Dude, you wouldn't be alive if there were hellhounds aft-"

A massive thud against the door makes Sam falls forward, before shuffling backwards in record time and barring himself against the door once more.

"What the hell?" Dean cries, rushing forward, peering through the window on the side only to have a ghastly canine thrust himself forward, teeth bared, snarling.

"Holy shit!" Dean curses falling backwards from the shock, still seeing the fangs at the window, dripping with...something.

"Dean!" Sam calls out to him, shaking him out of his stupor as he too throws his back against the door to stop the monsters from entry.

"What did you do!" he directs at Sam, his head now aching from the pounding at the door.

"What did I do? What? You're blaming me!"

"You're the one who got hellhounds after you!"

"You're the one who wouldn't believe me!"

"For like ten seconds Sam, how the hell would that have made a difference?"

"I don't know, why don't you ask them?"

Another thud as the dog throws himself toward the door, trying to break it down, howling, and scratching, and adjusting his jaw, trying to bite his way through.

"Why don't they just come through the windows?" Sam asks, confused, as another thud throws him forward, before once again, he shuffles back, helping his brother brace the door.

"Do you have a death wish?" Dean asks, incredulous at Sam's complaints, and at the younger brother's glare, Dean answers the initial question, "I salted the windows."

"But not the door!"

"I was about to when you came running in, dude!"

"They're not spirits, why does it repel them?"

"It doesn't."

"What?"

"Well not really, they just get...pissy."

"Pissy!"

"Do you have to repeat everything I say? Damn it, Sam...Sam what the hell are you doing!" he cries as Sam suddenly relinquishes his hold on the door, leaving Dean alone in fending them off with his own strength, while Sam dives for their bags, throwing clothes everywhere, searching for something.

"_Sam!"_ Dean cries, his body jutting back and forth as the door is pushed and pulled and yanked against its hinges. _Oh holy mother of god, we're dead, we are so dead_.

Sam appears finally. But instead of helping Dean, he opens the small knife he had retrieved from his pack and begins carving symbols into the doorframe; the dogs' growling from outside, as well as Dean's, is beginning to irritate him.

"Sam, a little help!" The door is pushed harshly once more, and for the moment where Dean was not pressing himself hard against it, the hound knew and threw itself against the door. As soon as it begins to give way, Sam mutters something under his breath and helps Dean scramble away from the door's trajectory as it falls, wood shattering slightly.

Dean rolls away from his brother's hold, his hands taking hold of the first weapon—his trusty shotgun—and he spares no time in aiming, but just as the hound leaps into the air, as soon as he reaches the doorway, he's thrown backwards with an unseen force. A barrier between himself and his prey.

"Why the hell are they after you?" Dean asks, now that the two hounds have settled for marching outside of the door.

"How the hell should I know, Dean?"

"Wait, what did you do to the door?"

"Protection symbols, from the book."

"What book?" Dean presses, frowning.

"The red one."

"What?" Dean mutters as he picks it up, scanning pages in a hurry, confused. "These don't work with hellhounds," And he turns back to the two dogs still circling the porch outside. "They're just possessed, you ass!"

"What does it matter, Dean?"

"I told you not to go." Dean ignores his brother, muttering about Sam's insistence earlier to check out the abandoned house alone.

"Can we focus on the demon-dogs? Please?"

"Why possess a dog anyway?" Dean asks incredulously.

"Worked with Cujo," Sam says in an attempt to answer.

"What the hell dude, Cujo wasn't possessed."

"Oh 'cause all dogs are that evil."

"Considering all the evil we've actually faced, I don't think Cujo even comes close."

"I'd take a Wendigo over a possessed demonic-killing-dog any day."

"Nothing demonic about it, he had rabies!"

"...wait, from the bat?"

"Yes!"

"Then maybe the bat was possessed."

"Grasping at straws."

"Clutching."

"What?"

"It's clutching at straws," Sam corrects.

"It's grasping," Dean insists.

"It's clutching."

"What do you know?"

"More than you," Sam replies with a smirk, and Dean matches it perfectly.

"Sure you do Mr. _Help me,_ _the hellhounds are coming_."

"Speaking of which..." Sam turns back to the door.

"Oh nice, just change the subject, that'll save you."

"Can we just exorcise them already?"

"What do they even want?"

"Does it matter?"

"Of course it matters Sam, look, I doubt you-know-who sent them, I mean, they're dogs, and if they can't get in, that means the symbols are working so they can't be that evil. Let's look at the facts: they came after you at the Adams house right?"

"Right."

"So, did you touch something, take something, _do_ something?"

"No."

"Then what?"

He turns back to the demon dogs still prowling, and growling...and scowling, come to think of it.

"Oh wait, there was an amulet thing that I touched."

"An amulet thing?"

"Yeah, on the door, felt kinda...tingly."

"What are you, six?"

"Excuse me?"

"All tactile and _oooh shiny I wanna touch_, god Sammy, grow up."

"Hey!"

"What? You touched it, not me, and now we have demon dogs outside of our motel room."

"Just exorcise them."

Dean pauses, almost amused at how their conversation has covered pretty much everything except a solution.

"If we send them back to Hell, and they had a reason for being here, it could blow up in our face, Sam," he says, changing his tune from earlier, "God, they might not even be demonic; they're probably just pissed you activated that damn amulet or something."

"_Not demonic?_ Dean, look at them."

"Yeah, and you thought Cujo was possessed so forgive my lack of faith on this one."

"If they're not demonic, why can't they get in?"

"I bet the symbols aren't even the right ones. You're such an idiot," Dean berates his brother.

"So what are they?" Sam says, through gritted teeth.

"I don't know, guards or—"

"Like hellhounds."

"No, _they_ guard _hell_, and I know the world sucks, but it isn't that bad, Sammy."

"It's Sam."

"Must you?"

"Yes."

"Where's the amulet now?" Dean asks rolling his eyes at his brother's hatred toward his old nickname.

"In my pocket."

Dean stops, his head spinning around to stare at his brother. _"What?"_

"Oh come on, mystical amulet, I wasn't just going to leave it there."

Dean drags a hand down his face in exasperation. "Give it to me."

"What? Why, what are you going to do?"

"Sam, need I remind you, that you're the one who started all of this? Now give me the damn amulet."

Sam grumbles, but otherwise complies in handing over the amulet. Dean takes in the engravings if only to lull Sam into a false sense of security before flinging it hard at the wall, smirking as it smashes into tiny pieces.

The mad barking turns to confused whimpering as the dogs stalk off, and Dean grins triumphantly.

"Now that's what I'm talking 'bout."

* * *

The house wasn't abandoned; its occupants just weren't bipeds anymore.

Sam and Dean deliberate and research. They interview the locals and pass theories back and forth to each other while simultaneously ridding the room of any demon-dog evidence, before they finally learn the truth.

They find police reports going back nearly five years of neighbours' complaints about the loud racket, and the growling of two Alsatians in the garden. Particularly from the woman next door, Emma Marks.

There are many clues pointing toward her less than normal life. The most obvious of which becomes apparent when the Winchesters interview her son, who had died three years prior.

Who catches his fingers in the door and didn't even flinch, whose breath stinks of formaldehyde and soap.

"So the necromancer got revenge on her neighbours..." Dean mutters, aware of how strange it sounds.

"Yup," Sam confirms as they stand over the now rotting zombie corpse of the Marks' son at their feet. Emma screams from behind a locked door, and Dean destroys every altar in the basement that he can find.

* * *

When they get back to the motel in the early hours of the morning, they're wired from the hunt. The victory makes the adrenaline pump, and they're wide awake.

Dean switches on the TV and finds nothing but children's programmes. Purple dinosaurs and men in bright clothing smiling and grinning, singing to a tune. Sheep dance across the screen and all Sam hears is, _"Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb..."_

Sam leaves the room as soon as the headache begins. He slams the door behind him and leaves a semi-shocked Dean on the bed.

The TV lies broken on the floor.

Neither one of them touched it.

**TBC**

**Please Review! Sorry it took so long to update :)**


	6. Chapter 6

**I'm sorry it took so long for me to update, I'll try harder to get the chapters done quicker, I promise. Thanks to everyone who reviewed (and hey, if you're still around let me know by reviewing!) **

**Thanks to Pixel for being the best beta ever, and special thanks goes to geminigrl11 too; message meant a lot, hun :)  
**

**Part Six**

Sam comes back two hours later. His hands are stuffed in his pockets, and he welcomes the added warmth of the motel room. He frowns at Dean who's on the floor, picking up shards of glass from the television screen.

It's in _pieces_ scattered across the stained motel carpet.

"What happened?" Sam asks, his face a picture of confusion.

"I was hoping you could tell me, psychic boy," Dean quips, flinching at a particular sharp piece of glass that nicks his finger and leaves a quick blossom of red in its place.

"What?" Sam asks again, trying to find his voice and stare at anything but his brother's blood.

Dean doesn't clarify; Sam doesn't need him to do. Or want him to. Dean just kneels there, holding his bleeding finger in his palm and flashing Sam with a smirk that looks more like a grimace.

"I don't...I-I..."

"Its okay, Sammy."

"No, Dean, it isn't."

* * *

While Sam hears nursery rhymes as he desperately tries to sleep, Dean hears the sing-song voice of his father edging closer and closer.

"_They don't need you, not like you need them,"_ _he sneers, and Dean swallows the bile in his throat. _

"_Sam, he's clearly John's favourite, even when they fight it's more concern than he's ever shown you."_

He wakes up screaming when the bleeding starts. He bucks and arches his back up off bed as though he can still feel his tender flesh ripping at the seams. When he pulls back the covers with shaking hands, he sees a tiny crimson line on his stomach.

"Shit," he mutters. "Shit, shit, _shit_."

"Dean?" Sam calls in the dark, his voice slurred and groggy from sleep.

"I'm fine, go back to sleep Sammy."

And the little brother complies, secure in the knowledge that the demon isn't there and his brother isn't bleeding to death.

Well, he isn't. Not technically—just a little bit where the stitches ripped. That's all.

He's lived through worse, hell, he's sewn himself up after worse. This is nothing. Nothing that needs more attention than what he'll give it in the bathroom while Sam sleeps. Nothing worth talking over or agonizing about. They're just dreams—nightmares, they're not visions. They won't save lives. They're not worth the hassle.

And that's _all_.

* * *

There's a ghost calling out to them. Yet another haunted house in California, and they go, they listen, they salt and they burn. The re-bury bones, content that they've done all they needed to do, and when they get no thanks, they don't even mind.

They don't care when they get into the fourth rental car that month.

The things just don't work.

Dean drives them to hell and back, and they _cough, splutter_ die.

Sam's pretty sure Dean's doing it on purpose. Dean's too busy sticking his head out the window and screaming classic rock lyrics to each and every car they pass.

* * *

Sam frowns when he sees how stiffly Dean drives and the frown lines in Sam's face only etch deeper into his skin when he sees the spots of blood on one of Dean's dirty shirts. It's recent, Sam's sure, but when he calls his brother on it he's brushed away like every other stranger that stride into their lives.

Not deemed important enough to deserve that level of trust.

Sam would be lying if he'd said it hadn't hurt.

* * *

They're walking past a pre-school when Sam hears it, and the windows there explode, showering the toys in glass.

He stares open-mouthed while the children inside cry.

No one is hurt, but Sam will let the guilt weigh him down all the same. Dean never makes the connection, or rather, he never says anything. He mutters later on about how dangerous it could have been, about how the builders were to blame—should be sued. The wind had been strong after all...

_Mary had a little lamb..._

Sam clenches his fists tightly until his nails bite into his palms, and he's biting his tongue to stop from crying out.

It's getting ridiculous, and he knows it.

* * *

They passed the "Welcome to Illinois" sign five miles back. They've been driving across a derelict road for that long, favouring the abandoned dirt roads to the populated areas.

They're ghost hunters after all, and their prey isn't the type to join in with the crowd.

They know everything they can. She's a tortured soul. Her body never recovered after—

_Seventeen year old, Ellen Kerry went missing two weeks ago today. Her parents Paul and Melinda are still desperately appealing to anyone who might have been around the area of Nara's Cross on the twelfth of December 2006. _

It's an old article, but five cars have gone missing since.

_Five. _

In such a small time span, it's a wonder the whole place isn't cordoned off—but they can't do that. The road's too long, and it's been scoured time and time again for months on end. There's nothing to be found. It's pointless to even look anymore.

Dean grips the steering wheel.

Not that he really cares if this rent-a-Honda gets misplaced.

Either way they need the ride, and he doesn't stop for the apparitions by the side of the road that make his hair stand on end, and he keeps his eyes peeled for possessed drivers behind the wheels of a semi trucks.

Can never be too careful after all.

He wonders if he should be scared. He's always favoured an empty road, but after nine cars go missing without a trace he's more than a little edgy about driving straight through.

They pass only a few signs, one of which says _park off pavement_, as all Dean sees is gravel, road, gravel...nothing.

There are mountains in the distance; silhouettes unfazed by the desert chills standing tall against a darkening night sky.

Sam's been quiet for over an hour now. Longer if you don't count the small talk that emphasised the sheer tension. Dean doesn't know where the tension has come from. He didn't say a word about the window, when he knows exactly what happened and _who_ did it but maybe Sam knows all the same.

* * *

It takes several hours and nearly all of their gas to pass those looming mountains, but once they're on the other side not only are there three gas stations to choose from but there are also one or two stop offs.

They've been running on black coffee and cold pastry for god knows how long, and Dean stops the car outside of the backwards diner that's better than nothing. It's far from full there but there's enough, and they decide on a booth closest to the window. At least then they can see the car and plan their getaway should the food not deserve their payment.

This job might take a while—most of them do—so it makes sense to get a decent meal in them before they start their day-to-day questioning as soon as they hit town.

Sam's been as quiet as Dean, and his gaze has been unfocused and hazy since Dean shook him awake long after lunchtime. Sam cricks his neck and can't remember the last time he slept for so long. He wonders if the headache that won't leave him alone is some kind of side effect, as though it is impossible for him to go that long without a nightmare or a vision. Or a lullaby in his ear.

As he sits opposite his brother in the diner booth, he barely registers Dean's order of a cooked breakfast for them both.

"We stop serving breakfast after eleven," the waitress explains as she chews her gum and twirls the pen in her fingers. She nods over to the clock that reads six p.m. Dean grins, and Sam doesn't need to open his eyes to know his brother's turning on the charm.

"Sorry, I don't make the rules," she says finally, pursing her cherry lips, and Dean turns back to the menu.

"Okay, what's the afternoon special?"

"Sausage, bacon, egg, beans—"

"So it's the cooked breakfast?" He cuts her off.

"No, this we serve until nine tonight."

"Two please."

She takes the menus away and brings their fresh coffees back five minutes later. All the while Sam has sat stoic, slumped in his seat, and Dean has been prowling the local newspapers scattered in front of him around the ketchup and salt shakers.

When Sam looks around his vision jolts for a second, but it's long enough and he fights to stop from swallowing his own tongue. He looks up again, and sees the colours mesh; he blinks and sees the images cross. One minute Dean's sitting, the next he's lying on the bed and the demon is standing above him.

Their father.

He looks at Sam with his yellow eyes, cocks his head to the side, and sits across from him. The bastard sits in Dean's seat and pretends to care about the articles on the table; he even picks up a red pen and circles a few as though he knows what he's looking for. He does all of this until he looks back at Sam and starts.

_Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb; Mary had a little lamb that knew this day would come. He tried to shut the image out, image out, image out; he tried to shut the image out, but still his brother BLED. _

The last word is so loud that it echoes and bounces off the walls of Sam's psyche. It's so strong that the vision shakes with the lasting echoes of the letters, and he's clutching at his forehead, teeth bared. He's growling low at the searing pain of the vision before he reacts.

"Stop singing!" Sam screams, shooting to his feet and lunging across the table to attack what his mind says is the demon.

"Sam," Dean says as calmly as he can when his brother's pocket knife is millimetres away from his own jugular, pressing closer with each ragged breath Sam takes. Eyes wild like an abused animal, hissing just as similar to one.

_He tried to shut the image out, image out, image out..._

"Stop!"

The grip on the knife increases, and Dean dares not swallow the lump in his throat. He'd rather not have his Adam's apple sliced away, thank you very much.

The diner's gone silent, and Dean can feel the hushed fear inside with them. It won't be long before someone decides to play hero, and Dean has to get them out of there before anyone has a chance to even think it.

"Sam," he says quietly, never breaking eye contact. "It's me, it's Dean."

Sam doesn't react and Dean feels the pit in his stomach start to roll around and morph into horrible notions of what if?

"Sam—" Dean tries again, but Sam shushes him with a single purposeful movement of pushing the knife closer. The skin is about to break, Dean knows.

"I said, shut up."

The image scares Dean, but as much as he hates to be on the receiving end of Sam's weapon-wielding mood-swings (damn it, wasn't once enough?) he's disturbingly proud of how furious Sam can get. It might come in handy after all.

Supposing they both step out of the diner alive that is.

"Sammy," Dean whispers still watching Sam so carefully, while letting his ears spy on the gawking civilians inside with them.

After what seems like a millennia in which Sam stays steady, patrons stare and a waitress has already run off in search of the manager—finally Dean sees his brother blink. He watches the grip on the knife falter and as it drops, he lets his own expert reflexes catch it before it is plunged into his skin.

Sam is holding his head in his hands, shaking it and muttering. Dean swallows back the indecision and quickly steps over to Sam's side and leads him out. He tries to give the elderly couple by the exit a reassuring smile, but it's worth nothing.

The bell on the door is on its last chime when the manager comes thundering in, and the hustle and bustle finally resumes as the customers eat their food. Their _not-quite_-cooked-breakfasts are forgotten completely.

Sam and Dean drive in complete silence until they reach the motel parking-lot and Dean brakes a little more abruptly than was necessary.

"You wanna tell me what the hell just happened?"

The tone makes Sam flinch, and he stares up—worried.

"I don't know...I'm sorry, I don't _know_."

Compassion is fleeting when the ghost of a blade is still teetering so close to his neck.

"How can you not know? You had a knife at my neck, Sam. Were you pissed or is there a little supernatural influencing going on?"

"No, despite what you might think I don't like venting my anger by pointing weapons at you."

"Then what happened? You were freaked, man." Dean runs a hand through his hair as he unwillingly feels the need to pace as he waits for Sam's explanation.

And when Dean hears it—the explanation—he can't help feel a little put down.

"That's all?" He asks. "Singing?" _That's what made you pull a knife on me?_

"You don't understand...it's _twisted_ and it's been following me for weeks, months."

"But only now you're saying something?"

"Only now you're asking!"

"Because you nearly slit my throat, Sammy. I mean breaking TVs is one thing but this?" Another sigh escapes his lips and to anyone else it might be misconstrued as disappointment but to Sam's trained eyes, he recognises it as barely concealed terror.

"What if it had been the waitress, Sam? You could have gotten arrested."

Dean's careful not to mention the broken glass—already well aware of Sam's brooding guilt in that respect.

"I didn't—" But Sam stops himself. There's nothing worse than replying with nothing more than _I didn't mean to_, because that's no apology and it explains nothing. Gives reason to nothing.

Truth is, he did mean to. He saw the demon sitting across from him, and he wanted more than anything to have its blood spilled across his own blade, his hands. He blinks away thoughts of Dean's blood doing just that and swallows the sick he feels creeping up his throat.

"We need to leave," Dean explains carefully in a tone that's not quite cold. "That scene at the diner didn't go unnoticed; we can't risk that much attention. We're leaving in ten."

The order is reminiscent of days under their father's command, but Sam says nothing. He only starts checking the duffels to make sure everything is accounted for while Dean grabs the last of their stuff from the bathroom.

They're checked out in five.

* * *

They've been quiet for twenty-seven minutes. Not that Sam's counting because all he can do is stare at the _clock_ for fear of his _brother's_ stare. For fear of Dean's imploring eyes. For fear of a glare hidden in his hazel green depths...

They've been quiet for twenty-seven minutes when they finally spot the faint light past the first few trees on the road's third turning. They've reached the town and now they've got somewhere to set up base.

They've been quiet for twenty-seven minutes when Dean says they should take stock for the night, and Sam can do nothing but agree with a yawn and drag his hand across his eyes and start counting again from the start.

_One, two, three..._

* * *

They're staying in a freakishly cosy bed and breakfast with a nosy receptionist who can't take a hint and every guest is twice their elders. It's a little off the side of the road, not so close that they can be on their way in less than five minutes, but closer than any motel they've seen.

The beds are comfortable but the sheets—and indeed anything with a surface—are floral. They're not intending on staying for breakfast. An early start means they can get to work on their most recent case that took the backburner when Sam pulled a weapon on his brother. Again.

"Missing cars, no sign of forced _anything_. Just gone, out of the blue," Dean mutters to himself and to Sam as they walk along the landing on their way out. "I know it's our gig, I just...I don't know _how_."

Sam turns. He's about to answer his brother when the headache comes without warning. Sharp, blinding pain erupting at the base of his skull and rushing forward like crashing waves on the shore until it reaches his eyes, until all he can see is the red blood he knows is oozing from his nose. The agony comes fast in a white flash like a supernova in his cornea.

He screams.

Dean watches him fall. He takes too long to process that Sam's holding his head, that Sam's falling and when he jumps forward, it's too late. Sam's already falling down the stairs, all arms and legs until he's at the bottom and Dean's jumping down, four at a time.

He runs over Sam's body with his eyes, no jutting bones, no awkward limbs. No indication of extensive injury. A bloody nose is all that's seen—but Dean's pretty sure that was there before the harsh tumble. He cradles his brother's head in his lap and ignores the receptionist who looks so concerned.

"Oh my," she gasps, but stares instead of doing much else.

"What happened?" someone asks, exiting from the nearby downstairs bathroom and there's suspicion beneath the words, as if the poor young man was pushed.

Dean ignores them.

"Sammy?"

His brother's eyelids are rushing back and forth frantically.

"…ambulance?"

Dean hears the word and his head shoots up. "No he's fine," says the man with a myriad of cuts and scars across his face—because when glass smashes, it smashes good and when a truck ploughs into an Impala, you're lucky to get out alive—

"It's on the way," someone else answers, and Dean steels his jaw. He will not start a fight, he will not start a fight, he will not start a fight.

"Sammy? Come on man, wake up. It's Dean."

Nothing. And the nothing drags on until there are sirens in the air and Dean feels that fear at his back creep that little bit closer to him and his brother.

**TBC**

**Please Review!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Beta'd by pixel, because otherwise you'd go blind with my crap-ass punctuation :)**

**I'm so sorry about the delay...again! I apologise in advance for the language...not sure if I have on other chapters but yeah, it's there.**

**Part Seven.**

Sam's three and his mood swings are as bad as they come. When he bawls, he can be heard three states away. But when he smiles John can't help but hold him in his arms when he comes back from his hunt.

Pastor Jim stands back, smiling as John holds his arm out for Dean too.

He needs his boys, needs to hold them, and console them in a way he cannot console himself. He's sorry, and he's trying not to fall apart. He has things to answer for, so many lost days and nights and night-terrors making the shadows loom forgotten when Daddy's not home, but his sons still cling to him like he's all they'll ever need.

* * *

Sam's fourteen, and he's a brat. He goes out of his way to get under his father's skin; he's loud and his newfound height makes him fumble. He acts before he thinks of the consequences, before he's even aware there are consequences to joining after school clubs or working hard at night when he should be sparring in the garden. It doesn't matter that morally he's right, because he's disobeying his guardian.

Insubordination is all John can see.

Puberty's hit hard and oh, doesn't it show.

Sam's fourteen, but he's just a child.

But when John comes rushing home early from a hunt, Dean bloody and unconscious in his arms, John needs more than a child.

"Sammy!" he calls from the doorway, "Your brother needs help."

He's fourteen and he's a brat, and he's a child and he's holding the needle and thread and passing it to his father. He's holding his brother's arms down, lest he wake during the procedure and he's smoothing Dean's damp hair down and whispering fearful assurances like its enough to wake the dead.

* * *

Sam's twenty-two, and he can drink now. Dean's been keeping a sharper eye on him for over a year. After all, they were both in that Texas bar on Sammy's sixteenth...

But every time Dean hangs back at the far-ends of the California bars—without Sam's knowledge—he only ever sees a couple glasses go near his brother's lips. Sam knows his limits. Knows how easy it is to get him completely plastered, singing, dancing and generally making an ass of himself.

Sam's twenty-two, and he's watching his first real-true-passionate love burn into dust on the bedroom ceiling. Her blood drips down and marks his forehead. A brand of something he'll never now have.

Or ever truly understand.

* * *

Sam's twenty three, and he's lying in a hospital bed behind closed doors because not only did he receive the worst vision to date, but he also managed to fall down a flight of stairs.

Not the smartest of moves, Dean knows.

And he'll beat Sammy up about it later, because, yes, there will be a later.

Because if there isn't, Dean doesn't know what he'd do.

* * *

They're dodging flames wherever they go, burning graves and whispering exorcisms like they're prayers from the needy.

Sam's twenty-three, and he has a demon on his tail, racing after him like Speedy Gon-_fucking_-zales.

_But you're all mine_.

The voice hisses in his ear, and Dean's reaction is instantaneous. His spine jerks and his eyes are wide open. Sleep gone, weariness gone, everything _gone_ except for the stark white walls and flittering cold pricking at his skin.

All because of the whispers too close to his ears when he was only well aware that he was alone in the damn corridor, having fallen asleep on the most uncomfortable seats known to man. Plastic crap that leaves marks on your skin, crumples your clothes, and makes dents in your bones that you'll feel in the morning. _Mark my words, you'll feel it_.

He sits back and the tension from his muscles turn to sudden spasms that won't go away. The pain from fear only seems to travel upward until the base of his skull and behind his ears are throbbing while the bottom of his back aches horribly.

His heart has only just begun to slow down from the heart-attack-inducing-frenzy it had just suffered...

The words weren't a dream, but they _were _waiting for him to close his eyes.

Before he knows what he's doing, his ribs and lungs are pulsing and he makes a bee-line for the nearest bathroom, which—as luck would have it—isn't that far away.

He throws up everything and more, until he's panting on his knees, holding onto the white porcelain as though it hadn't had a thousand other people in his same position earlier in the day.

Holding it like it's all he can do to stop from falling back and hitting the cubicle door. Closing his eyes, and letting _her_ in. Whoever she is. With her silky sweet voice that makes his skin chill until goose bumps rise, and his hair stands on end from his neck to his fingertips. He feels dirty and violated because he shouldn't be hearing anyone's voice but his own.

He shouldn't be waking up every night with ghostly echoes of his father's fingertips gouging deep into his open wounds. He shouldn't be screaming silently and showering through the biggest migraines he's ever faced.

This shouldn't be happening to him. This isn't how he deals, this is Sam's gig. Sam dreams, Sam gets headaches, Sam broods and grieves.

_Sam falls down the fucking stairs. _

* * *

The nurses show him to Sam's room, but still he sees no doctor there waiting to explain. He hasn't been told a damn thing, but there's no one around to ask. Their heads are bowed. Noses in charts and talking with other patients.

Normally on trips to the hospital (because in their line of work, getting admitted on a regular basis _is_ normal) Dean remembers nothing. He's either unconscious or too worried about the injured party to care about anything else. But this time he remembers it all. He's worried that if he forgets something, not only is his father not here to pick up the pieces, but he could lose Sam too.

This isn't a broken bone that needs setting, there's no dislocation, nothing visible except the bruises Sam's gained from his fall. There's no neon lights screaming psychic injury. There's no hint that it's supernatural...that it's not just a bump on the head. Except Sam hasn't woken up yet. It's been hours, and the boy's still out cold.

Dean makes a mental note to kick his little brother's ass for putting him through this.

This panicked state in lonely hospital corridors and bleak rooms.

Normally, it's all forgotten, but Dean can see it all. Every bleep of the ambulance machines. Every movement. Every ripple of skin above the EMT's knuckles as he expertly inserted lines and checked Sam for any bleeding.

The movement of lips as he asks Dean questions. The tensing of the jaw, each blink of an eyelid. Each silent, still non-existent movement of Sam on the gurney. _Wake up, wake up, wake up._

"Excuse me," Dean calls from the doorway, tired of waiting. Tired of it all. "Who's treating my brother?" Dean asks, practically barrelling into a nurse and disturbing her fast pace as he steps out of Sam's room completely.

"I'll try and find out for you," she says kindly, making a note of the room number and continuing down the hall—sidestepping Dean like he was nothing. No one.

"Thanks," he mutters though she's too far away to hear.

She comes back ten minutes later, apologising.

"Dr. Featherwood is treating your brother but she's working on an emergency downstairs. She won't be able to speak with you until he's done there."

* * *

Dean doesn't notice he's biting his fingernails until he's gone right down to the base on his thumb and there's blood blossoming in the corners where the tender skin has been bitten away.

He tries holding his hands instead and when that doesn't work and he only ends up hitting his knees with his fists—he cracks his knuckles loudly. Sam doesn't even grumble and Dean bitches under his breath until he sighs, takes his phone out of his pocket and plucks up the courage to just...just dial.

_Ring, ring, ring_

_It wasn't him, it wasn't him, wasn'twasn'twasn't_

"Dean?"

John sounds more surprised than Dean could have ever guessed, but then, John knows about his elder son's hesitance. He can hear Dean's hitched breathing through the receiver.

"It's Sam," Dean says hurriedly, listing the hospital address and the coordinates as quickly as possible before hanging up.

He'll come, their father will come.

_...more concern than he's ever shown you..._

He'll come.

* * *

"Sir, visiting hours are over, you can come back in a few hours."

It's the same nurse from earlier, but the name on her tidy uniform blurs in a mesh of white calligraphy emblazoned upon her. He's losing the fight against exhaustion but the doctor still hasn't arrived and Sam's still asleep.

"There's a motel nearby," she says with a smile. "Down the road, less than twenty minutes away."

But Dean doesn't leave.

He just sits on those plastic crap-ass-son-of-a-bitch chairs that love him so much in the bustling corridors of the hospital. If he's ushered away by staff, he hangs back in the toilets, and when the janitor there questions him, he shuffles back to the chairs.

His ritual lasts all night because that emergency? The one that's keeping Dr. Featherwood away from Sam?

Railway crash.

Countless injuries, several dead and this is the closest hospital for the EMTs to shuttle the victims into.

So Dean waits a little longer.

* * *

"Mr. Matthews?" a young doctor asks, and Dean remembers his alias in time to shrug away his lack of response to his mind being on other things. _Like an unconscious brother for one. _

He's proud he's stayed awake all night to even hear her. It's early in the morning—but as of three minutes ago, the morning visiting hours had begun.

"Yes?"

"My name's Dr. Featherwood, I've been treating your brother, Sam."

Dean nods as he gets to his feet ignoring the crack of his back and knees. _Stupid chairs_. He takes a moment to look at her dark red hair, tied tightly into a bun with only a few strands falling forward and framing her heart-shaped face.

"He's awake if you'd like to see him now."

Dean feels the relief wash over him like spring rain during an early heat wave. He follows the doctor numbly and pays no heed to the warnings that they don't have long, tests have to be carried out now that Sleeping Beauty's opened his eyes.

Dean catches the gist, _mild head trauma from the fall_. They have scans scheduled soon. _You have a few minutes_.

But then the doctor stops right in front of Dean, blocking the door from the oldest Winchester's way. He falters. He didn't hear the doctor's last words, and he can't bullshit through Sammy's health. He won't.

"Sir?"

"I—what?" Dean mumbles and something softens in the doctor's face as she takes in the appearance of the patient's brother. A haggard face, worn and weathered. Deep bruising under the eyes—clear indication of a severe lack of sleep—and eyes bloodshot to hell and back. He's paler than he should be—no colour in his cheeks at all.

"Sir, are you alright?" She sounds so kind, but doctors have one purpose. Saving a family member when the rest of them can't. That's all. They're not for confiding in or talking to. Listening, yes, on occasion. Talking to? No. No. _No_.

"I'm fine, just...pre-occupied," Dean shrugs and by his helpless hands by the side of him and downcast gaze it's clear he just doesn't _know_ anymore.

"I asked whether or not your brother had received medical attention recently."

Dean swallows and nods—feeling a throb beginning to pulse at the bridge of his nose.

"Yeah, we—we were in a car crash a few months ago."

Dr. Featherwood pauses.

"Was Sam badly injured?"

Dean pinches between his eyes as he tries to think back to all that he managed to find out.

"He had a concussion, I think, but the MRI and CAT scans were clear."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"Do you have a number for the hospital you were admitted to? I think it would help if I could discuss Sam's previous injuries with the attending there."

"I was kinda out for the count, Doc."

"Is there anyone—"

"Dean?"

Dr. Featherwood's question is cut off by the barking voice, and Dean turns so fast his head spins. John Winchester is parading down the hallway, his stride the very essence of confidence. Of intimidation.

"Dad," Dean manages to breathe, and he tries not to fidget under his father's gaze.

Dean knows he looks like shit, but it's Sam that fell down the stairs, not him.

"You're Sam's father?" Dr. Featherwood asks and John nods curtly.

"What's wrong with my son?" he asks...no, commands. Orders. _Tell me now, now, now_.

"He fell down a staircase, we were a little concerned with how long he was unconscious but he's awake and alert, you came just in time." She smiles and John returns it quickly—devoid of warmth.

"Can we see him?"

"Of course, there are papers that you'll need to fill out, you understand."

"I can do it," Dean says and curses himself for drawing attention to his hunched form.

"Dean when was the last time you slept?" John asks, trying to keep the reprimand away from his tone of voice. "I mean a _good _night's sleep."

"No such thing," Dean smirks but it's the kind he reserves for complete strangers.

"Is there a bed he could _borrow_?" John asks, turning his attention to the doctor.

"What? I'm fine; I don't need one, really." The last part is directed to the attending.

"Its okay Dean, I'll keep watch over Sam. You need to rest."

"I'm _fine_."

"This isn't open for negotiation. You can barely stand up, don't think I can't see you leaning on that wall, kiddo."

John pats Dean on the shoulder but doesn't keep his hand there long enough to feel the slight quiver beneath his palm. Nor does he look long enough to see the haunted gaze that covers Dean's irises. John follows the doctor to Sam—conversing all the way—and Dean trudges back to the god-damn-chairs. He regards them with the same hatred and distrust he would a demon or a creature of darkness.

He sits himself down with a grim frown.

"I should get overtime for this," he groans, throwing his head back against the wall and closing his eyes.

_Now_ he gives in to exhaustion. Now.

**TBC**

**Please review if you're still reading lol**


	8. Chapter 8

**Beta'd by pixel :) thank you to everyone who reviewed. This is a little longer than usual so hopefully it'll tide you guys over for a bit (with Christmas around the corner things are a little hectic, not to mention I'm supposed to get christmas prompts written.)**

**Part Eight.**

John looks at Sam like he's a broken doll after a burning blaze—the only surviving unscathed toy surrounded by the charred remains of a life once lived.

He looks at him like he's the only thing that made it out of that fire in one piece.

He cocks his head to the side and watches his youngest son's chest rise and fall steadily. Sam's too busy following the penlight the doctor's holding in front of him to notice his father staring.

Hell, he's still trying to understand why his father's there in the first place.

He's answering questions carefully—he's articulate...perfect. John isn't sure if his boy's lying or not and that scares the shit out of him.

What was it Bobby had told him? That he didn't deserve their loyalty?

Maybe he's right, maybe John doesn't. Sam shouldn't be able to lie that well, no one should be _that_ good.

Maybe John lost his right to respect when he taught them how to be the perfect criminals just because that's what the job demanded. The hunt.

Maybe he lost his right to respect when he told Sam to leave and never come back.

Maybe it was after he left his boys in Fort Douglas for days on end when he knew who the Shtrigawould go for. It was no coincidence that the latest victims had lived next door to the motel.

No coincidence at all.

He'd used them as bait. He'd waited, and he'd convinced himself that nothing bad would happen to Sam as long as Dean was around. He hadn't seen Dean leave the motel room though. He'd been scouting the perimeter. He hadn't seen, and he had blamed Dean for something a child could not expect to avoid. Boredom had gotten the better of him that was all. He wasn't openly defying orders for the hell of it. He was acting his age. As he should.

John had scorned him for it, and let that one event mould his boy into the perfect soldier. A fighter, a hunter.

"Well Mr. Matthews, it seems like the worst is over, but we still need to run some tests, schedule an MRI—"

_Not again_, Sam thinks.

"I'm fine, really."

"It's routine with injuries such as yours, we don't want to overlook anything."

"If Sam says he doesn't need the test, Doc, I believe him," John replies, knowing that if there's a problem, there's nothing the doctors can do.

"_It's Sam, he had a...a vision and he fell."_

"Where's Dean?" Sam mumbles, and John smiles tiredly as the doctor leaves them to their business. John jerks his head to the open door, and Sam can just see his brother on the chairs outside. It looks like the most uncomfortable position known to man but there's a frown on his brother's face—and Sam hates that he put it there.

"He okay?" Sam asks, and John snorts. It was always the same, despite injuries or ill health, both of them were always concerned about the other.

"Just needs rest; he was swaying on his feet when I got here."

Sam doesn't ask why Dean isn't in the room with them. He doesn't need to.

"Why _are_ you here?"

John hides his hurt with a quirked eyebrow.

"That came out wrong," Sam corrects quickly, and John nods in understanding.

"Dean called me."

"He did?"

As much as Sam completely and utterly had confidence in his brother, he'd been faltering of late. Their run-in with the demon had left so many scars.

Outside. Inside. Hidden. Not forgotten.

Dean was more jumpy than usual. The demon had gotten inside of his head. Tortured him with his father's face...taunted and mocked and whispered insecurities—bringing them out into the open. No matter how trivial they were to Sam, they clearly meant enough to Dean for the demon to have mentioned it at all.

"He's not handling anything, is he?" John asks, sounding every bit as defeated as he feels. Sam wishes he would stop before the emotional dams were breached. He can't take another broken Winchester; he is barely holding it together himself.

John shakes his head. A smile slipping into place and a hollow laugh that's more like a whisper leaves his parted lips—crowned with teeth, biting down in concern.

"What happened Sam?" he changes the subject. "Dean said something about a vision, the doctor said you fell down a flight of stairs..."

"They're right."

"What did you see?" John asks as he shoots his sleeping son one last look before closing the door and giving Sam the privacy he needs.

Sam tells his father every sordid detail until his memory is replaying the melody like it's the soundtrack to his twisted subconscious. He tells all he remembers, everything he felt, everything he saw and heard. He has no time to worry about how his father will take all of this in. He opens up like he's never been closed. Like Dean never will.

And when he's done, and John's just sitting there, Sam braces himself for the orders.

He'll accept them, he'll follow them. He needs his father to tell him exactly how to handle this. How to go on, how to keep himself from letting the dreams—the visions—consume him.

And he's gonna get it. Dad will know what to do, he'll impart his wisdom and they'll all be better off for it.

"Your mother always hated nursery rhymes."

That's all John says after a long silence. But somehow it sounds better than any order could have.

* * *

_Creeping, clawing, and edging deeper inside where it doesn't belong. _

_Minemineminemine._

_Blood spills freely, drips slowly, and you're gasping and wishing you could move just so you could fall into a heap. Just so you could grab at the blood and force it back in, hold the wounds and try to staunch the bleeding._

_Fall, fall, fall..._

"_Dean!" Sammy's screaming. _

"_He's in the room,"_ a female whispers. _"He's with Sammy."_

"Sam!"

Slapstick has always made Dean laugh but never when he's the one _doing_ it.

His nightmares make him jerk and in a vain attempt to escape the pain of jamming his hip against the plastic chairs for the nine billionth time that day, he moves to the left. His foot, caught in the leg of the chair, brings him down to the ground and the chair follows after.

He doesn't get up straight away. He lies there for a moment, trying to discern if he's broken his nose or not. He hasn't, but it hurts like a bitch and he no doubt looks like a complete idiot in the middle of a now fairly crowded corridor.

He picks himself up slowly. No point adding a repeat performance now is there?

He moans as the feeling of vertigo unleashes itself on his head as he tries to right his position from floor to standing. He doesn't spare a glance to the closed door of his brother's room. He's too busy making his way to the toilet down the hall. He looks at his watch and groans. Three hours means nothing when you'd been awake for so many days...not to mention the goddamn nightmares.

He stares at his gaunt face in the mirror and blinks, running a hand down his face and splashing more water there for good measure. He sucks in a deep breath and lets the liquid drip down and pool at his neck and on the collar of his shirt.

He has no pills to pop, and he isn't about to scam the hospital before his brother is released. He's in no condition to get away with it either. The water will have to do for now.

He feels more than a little disconcerted by this new twist in his dreams. A woman he doesn't know...hell he can't even tell if she's human. But she's there, whispering to him like he should recognize her voice, but he doesn't. He can't.

He takes his time shuffling back down corridors he knows too well on his way to his brother's room. He would have hurried if he'd known that he was the current topic of conversation.

Then again, maybe not.

* * *

"It's post-traumatic-stress, Dad, it doesn't just go away."

"You think I don't know that, Sammy? He can't go on like this, it's killing him."

"I know, I know."

"He just needs to know it's gone. That it won't come back." _That it isn't in me, that I'm not it._

Sam looks at his father. There's no way that sentence wasn't provoked by Sam's earlier explanations of his most recent visions.

"It isn't gone, and it will come back, Dad. It's not just around you. He has nightmares, horrible nightmares. The kind that could make mine look like lollipops and candy canes."

"Traumatic stress comes from trauma. If the trauma doesn't go away, the PTSD doesn't either."

"He's fine." Injury wise, he means. "It's been months since the crash, since the cabin."

"Exactly and he's barely mentioned it. The stuff the demon said about me being a favourite came straight from Dean, I know it did."

John's Adam's apple bobs up and down as he swallows. He remembers because he saw—and was seeing long before he finally broke through the demon's hold even if it was only enough to see Dean slump forward, blood dripping to the ground.

Dean needs to find a way to cope, but John doesn't know what to tell him.

He still hears the screaming of bullets ripping into bodies from his days in the Marines. He still sees smiles with spots of crimson. They just get pushed to the back of his head with everything else that's going on around him.

"He needs to talk to someone, Dad."

His boy doesn't need counselling. The Winchesters look after their own. But that isn't what Sam meant.

"He doesn't want to be near me."

"Exactly. He has to face you, Dad. He can't avoid you forever."

* * *

John scans his own mind for conversation topics just as he scans weather reports for signs of the demon. Just like when he counts and recounts data that might help them. Random sequences of information that make sense, even if he could never explain them to another.

Bobby has the car, and John has the Colt. It's tucked inside a lead box—with countless carvings of sigils on the sides, top and bottom. The inside is laced with salt and blessed crosses, water strips with the added touch of a priest's blessing. Devil's traps, signs of old. Nothing's getting in there unless it's John or one of his boys. They've got one bullet, one goddamn bullet and they can't waste it. They can't.

"How's the hunt?" Dean asks, watching Sam pretend to sleep, and John's saved from trying to start a conversation when Dean does it for him.

"No leads yet, but he'll show, I know he will."

It's the same kind of attitude that had John dragging toddlers across the Midwest. _He'll be there, I'll find him, I'll end this soon, I promise._

Dean walks out of the room, because if Sam's gonna pretend to snooze, then he doesn't deserve to hear and John follows, thinking pretty much the same.

"What are you driving these days, kiddo?"

"Crappy ass rental. Sam's choice."

John worries that Dean isn't asking about his baby.

Maybe he's afraid. Maybe he doesn't care. Maybe he's already worked it out that Bobby's busy with the framework and then it's all on Dean to make the finishing touches—tweak the engine and make her his own.

Maybe he knows Bobby's holding her for him. Maybe he knows Sam's keeping it a secret.

Maybe he's so lost that he hasn't noticed she's gone.

"We went to Lawrence," Dean tells his father. "Missouri, she..."

"I know, I heard."

Dean nods. Even a hunter runs out of small talk eventually. Dean can't think of anything more to say. They might as well be strangers.

"There's an ending to this, you know."

"What?" Dean asks, unsure of how his silence brought on _that_.

"Everything, this whole fight, it'll get done. You have to be ready to play your part, the demon—"

If John had just carried on...

If he'd bullshitted his way through the end of his sentence, Dean wouldn't have blinked an eye. But John didn't. John faltered. Dad never falters, he never hesitates.

_He lets his guard down around his boys, lets his emotions cloud his judgement_

_He's vulnerable when he's with us. _

Dean doesn't ask, _What, what is it?_ He doesn't glare, he doesn't step closer and he doesn't try to manipulate the information past his father's steadfast defences. He connects the dots that were always there and whispers instead, "You know."

"What?"

It isn't feigned innocence; it's resigned surprise.

"This whole plan the demon has, you know all about it, don't you?"

"No, Dean—" _It's not like that._

"You lied to us," he starts off quietly. Horrid realisation clawing through naïveté and denial. "You sent us hunting, you kept us back, you nearly...you nearly died, we could have all died...god, you _lied_ to us!" He emphasises the word with bitter betrayal seething within.

He's screaming. His breathing is more akin to harsh gasps as his chest heaves. As he tries to understand but can't. He's tail spinning. He's fucking..._god I can't do this_.

He's pacing, he's stamping his feet, and he's making the nurses look up at him in frustration. He's running his hand through his hair and pulling at the close to greasy locks as though the stabbing pain on the top of his scalp might wake him up from this nightmare.

John inches forward, and Dean screams _"Liar!"_ to his father's face.

He can't stop the thoughts racing around his head. The father he worships...now fears, knew all along. He sent them on hunt after hunt knowing that Sam was vulnerable with a demon on his tail. He knew and he lied through all of it. Sam's on a hospital bed because Dean didn't understand enough to help him...because his visions sent him toppling down a fall that could have resulted in a broken neck...in death.

He feels his life slipping away. He's always scared, he's always worried, and he's always looking over his shoulder and hating not knowing. That's the worst of it; never knowing, never understanding.

And all this time John could have put his son out of his misery. Could have helped save them both.

John grabs his son by his arms. Holding the fleshy muscle beneath and fingers tighten a little more than needs be. Dean's entire stature has frozen. His body rigid in his father's arms.

"Calm down," John growls, unprepared for any more damn outbursts. Unprepared for Dean's outbursts on the whole—that was Sam's job as the young rebellious teenager. Dean did as he was told, always.

John won't tiptoe around his sons any longer. It's ridiculous.

But Dean is far from calm.

"You will not make a scene," he says in a low voice that's dangerous and calculating rather than cruel and malicious. But still, with his father's fingernails scraping close to ripping his t-shirt, Dean can barely feel his legs.

He's numb because John's glaring.

When his father lets go, he doesn't move. He doesn't move until John sighs and catches a glimpse of Sam's doctor walking away in the other direction. John follows her without a word, and Dean lets his body slide down the wall until he's crouching and resting his head on his knees.

* * *

John's getting coffee when Dean comes back, and when John returns, Dean's taking his pee break. The awkward silence lasts as long as it takes John to suddenly need another cup of caffeine.

Dean pointedly ignores his brother's sheepish grin; he even pretends he doesn't see Sam's clear eyes staring him down. No, he's too busy watching the steady drip of the IV fluids. He's scrutinizing the blankets and few machines his brother is hooked up to.

If the job wasn't on hold before, it sure as hell is now.

When Sam tries to talk, tries to comfort and console, Dean raises his hand—silencing him immediately—and sits down on the chair that's waiting for him. Practically calling his name. He leans back, eyes closed and lets his entire body sag.

"Why do we always end up back here?" Dean finally asks. His voice sounds strained with more emotion than he'd ever care to admit.

"Creatures of habit," Sam grins but Dean's face falls.

_Creatures. _

Maybe their destiny is to become what they hunt. Violent spirits spawned from violent deaths. Demons dismembering their insides until they're nothing more than sagging skin on dirty, splintered walls.

What hurts him most is that his father knows, and Dean can't find the courage to stay close enough to ask what the hell they're getting into.

But then, even John doesn't know everything, and there's so much they're all so fucking clueless about. Nothing's accidental. Nothing's meaningless.

Everything, _everything_ plays a part. Everyone is a pawn in one huge chess game. Everyone is a user, a manipulator. Everyone has a motive. Everyone has a reason and every, _everything_ plays a part...

"It's not all bad." Sam's voice echoes through the painful reverie Dean finds himself in. "Bet you've already got all the nurses' numbers."

Dean laughs. He plays along, _plays his part_. Lying through his teeth. Like father, like son.

"You pull this shit again and I'm outta here," he comments with a sly smirk that Sam returns with ease.

"Sure you are."

"I'm serious man, you get yourself admitted anytime soon, and I will kick your ass."

"Doesn't that defy the point of getting admitted? To a _hospital_?"

Dean shrugs and finds the windowsill so interesting all of a sudden. There's no TV, no radio, just a small dresser by the side of Sam's bed with a pad of paper and pen sitting there. Sam doesn't fail to notice his brother's lack of...being.

"Hey man, I know you were worried and I'm sorry, but I'm fine, I swear," Sam presses.

"Yeah, you better be, bitch."

Sam grins.

His assurances will make sure that Dean gives him enough space to breathe. Dean won't coddle, he can barely stand up...

He isn't the only one lying his ass off, Sam is too, because as much as he's smiling and laughing, he can still hear it in his head. The echoing tune like a forever-opened jewellery box. Foreboding melodies because the demon knows just how to mess with his head, like always.

"_Mary had a little lamb."_

Like the fucking plague.

**TBC**

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